


Acedia

by icantwritegood



Category: Tinsworth - Fandom
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, be ready for the typical bunch of grey characters who u may or may not like, for once ricky's dad is alive, heavily focused on aesthetics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:14:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28857162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icantwritegood/pseuds/icantwritegood
Summary: A private secretary has his mental limits put to the test when he's hired by the lord of a wealthy family.
Relationships: Ricky Goldsworth/C. C. Tinsley
Comments: 30
Kudos: 46





	1. A Discordant House

**Author's Note:**

> i dont know when or where this story is set. i base my stories on aesthetics and little else.
> 
> might be short might be long
> 
> also i've decided that, in general, in all my current depictions of him, tinsley is around 40. it's dilf season and ricky's on the hunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _and as we lie_   
>  _here, caught_   
>  _in the monotony of wandering_   
>  _from room to room, shifting_   
>  _the place of our defences,_
> 
> _I want to break_  
>  _these bones, your poisoning rhythms_  
>  _(winter,_  
>  _summer)_  
>  _all the glass cases_ ,
> 
> _erase all maps,_  
>  _crack the protecting_  
>  _eggshell of your turning singing children:_
> 
> _I want the circle_  
>  _broken._
> 
> Margaret Atwood

He knew it was going to be a difficult job when he heard the crushing silence in the house. It was a silence weaponized. This was a family in trouble.

He had walked into the houses of dysfunctional families all around the country, and he found it easier to manage the ones who screamed and shouted at each other. At least they were willing to talk and vent their frustrations. But the ones that sat in their chosen rooms and refused to even acknowledge the other… He had never felt a wintry cold like it.

He remembered sitting in the back of the black Bentley, the smell of the clean leather upholstery, the sound of gravel crunching under the wheels. The manor rolling into view, grand and stone, with a small fat turret on the side. The windows, numerous and mismatched, the leadlight square or diamond. A discordant house to reflect the family within.

When the chauffeur opened the door to let him out, the scent of flowers from the front garden almost knocked him right back in. Sweet. Sickly sweet. Lilacs, rhododendrons, gardenias, honeysuckle. Early winter and they were hanging on, but soon their petals would be falling away, slowly at first, then all at once, to coat the grass in decay. 

He remembered the taste of the storm in the air. The dark, heavy clouds, so low he felt he could have reached out and plucked one from the rest.

‘Rain soon,’ the chauffeur had commented.

Tinsley looked at him, nodded. He lit a cigarette to try and get rid of the smell of the car, to mask the scent of the flowers. They were giving him a dull headache. At least the chauffeur had been silent. Sometimes they talked too much, having decided he was more-or-less one of their rank. But Tinsley was not one of their rank. He was not higher, nor lower. He was out on his own. He had to be; his job required a certain distance from the staff and family alike. Too many emotions led to too much turmoil, especially when an iron fist was required.

The entrance hall was impressive. The staircase was wide and set along the left side of the space, the walls were covered in framed paintings and gilt mirrors. The floor was dark wood with a large Turkish rug covering most of it. A soft chaise lounge lay between two hall tables, each holding ceramic pots of baby's-breath, the source of the unpleasant undercurrent to the otherwise dusty smell in the air. 

Through the far doorway to a parlour. The right wall had three floor-to-ceiling glass double-doors, one of which was open onto an ivy-swallowed patio. The air that breezed in was cool and thunder-laden. All the lamps were on, glowing in different intensities through their varied shades; embroidered, fringed, stained glass. The chandelier was golden, holding four flower-shaped lights over the two couches and long coffee table below.

Still, the silence. Not a sob nor a laugh to be heard. Not even a breath.

He turned to the housekeeper who had shown him in. ‘Where’s Lord Goldsworth?’

She pointed a frail veined hand to the open patio doors. The keys rattled on her belt. Finally, a noise! Tinsley looked her over; tall, thin, black dress with tight cuffs, a high neckline with a pearl necklace fixed around the outside. Pale eyes. Watery eyes. As if she was a reflection of her own self.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You can go.’

So she left.

The back garden was as spectacular and crowded as the front. Such a sweet smell, he couldn’t understand how anyone could bear to sit in it for any length of time; it was so strong it was poisonous. But clearly, people sat in it, as there was a set of cushioned chairs and a large wrought-iron table set on the patio. There was a China teapot and teacups, half a cake on a cake stand, and three plates, two of which were empty. The third plate was in the hands of a man, a good bit older than Tinsley himself. Greying sandy-blonde hair. Light brown eyes, a large round nose. Broad-shouldered, heavyset. He wore a blue shirt, suspenders, and tan trousers tucked into riding boots. He was looking at Tinsley, shoving a forkful of cake into his mouth.

Tinsley moved to the table, extending a hand to be shaken. ‘Lord Goldsworth, my name is Charles Tinsley. I’m the new private secretary you hired.’

No response from Lord Goldsworth. He was entirely preoccupied with his cake. 

The first few raindrops dotted the patio, staining the grey stone black, sitting on the ivy leaves like smoothened emeralds. Tinsley could hear it pattering against the flowers and trees, gentle, gentle. 

Tinsley retracted his hand.

‘Have some cake,’ said Lord Goldsworth, gesturing at the mess of buttercream and crumbs. ‘My mother brought it over last night. She’s a good baker. There’s lemon or something in it.’

Tinsley didn’t mind lemon. It wasn’t his favourite, but he didn’t hate it either. ‘Okay. Thank you.’

He took a napkin from the small stack of them and used a clean spoon to take a taste. It was light and fluffy, and the buttercream smooth.

‘Good, right?’ said Goldsworth, placing his own empty plate down.

Tinsley swallowed his mouthful before replying. 'Yes. It's good.’

That seemed to be the end of the conversation. It was a sudden lull to his otherwise hectic morning, and really he could have stood in this silent company for hours, like standing before a mountain, or an oak tree, humbled by unimportance and eternity. If it wasn’t for the sickening scent of the flowers.

Tinsley made his way slowly through the cake, breaking it apart bite by bite with the tip of his spoon. The rattling of a tray made him turn to face the patio doors again. The housekeeper stood in the doorway. Two cups of coffee sat steaming on the tray she held, along with a small plate of buttery shortbreads.

Lord Goldsworth stood up, showing himself to be a large man, almost as tall as Tinsley himself, and much broader. ‘Come inside. It’s starting to rain.’

Tinsley placed his buttercream-stained napkin on the table, using his spoon to keep it from drifting away in the breeze. Then he followed Goldsworth back inside. The housekeeper set the tray down and closed the double-doors, pushing the latches back into place. Suddenly, silence. Deep and heavy. Inhale too much and you’d drown in it.

Goldsworth sat on one of the rose-pink couches. ‘Have your coffee.’

Tinsley obediently sat, picked up the coffee that had been pointed at, and took a mouthful. Rich, fragrant, with an almost caramel undertone. ‘Mm. Very nice.’

‘St Helena. We get it in every month.’

Tinsley knew of the coffee, if only by its expensive reputation. ‘Well it’s very delicious.’

‘That’s good to hear.’ Goldsworth took a cigar from his shirt pocket, along with a small blade. He gave the tip a swift nick. ‘Got a light?’

Tinsley reached into his trouser pocket, taking out his metal lighter and handing it over. Goldsworth snapped it open and sparked the flame. He held the tip of the cigar over the flame and rotated it slowly in the heat.

‘You smoke?’ he asked around the cigar, snapping the lighter shut.

He tossed it across the table; Tinsley, unruffled, snatched it from the air before it could hit the floor and slide under the couch.

‘Only cigarettes,’ he said, slipping his lighter back into his pocket.

‘Brand?’

‘Marlboro Gold, most of the time.’

A grunt, either appreciative or disparaging, it was hard to tell. ‘Right, well. I’m sure you’re aware of your duties here already.’

‘I believe so,’ said Tinsley. _Manage communications. Attend public meetings. Organize diary, invitations, commitments. Always be available. Always be ready. Shut up and sit down. Give the paw. Roll over. Play dead._

‘And if not, you’ll adapt.’

Not a question. Not a statement. An order.

Goldsworth sat back, sighed all the smoke from his lungs into the air. Thick fumes, grey-green. Sour. Better or worse than the scent of the flowers? Tinsley couldn’t decide. A rock and a hard place.

‘Jennings!’

The housekeeper appeared again, the sound of her kitten-heeled shoes dull and soft. ‘Yes, sir?’

‘Escort Mr Tinsley here to his office. Or would you like to rest first, Tinsley? Jennings can show you to your rooms.’

Tinsley stood up, smoothed down his shirt. ‘I’ll familiarize myself with my work first, if that’s alright.’

A disinterested wave of a hand. ‘Suit yourself.’

Tinsley went to the door. He glanced over his shoulder as he left. Lord Goldsworth remained slumped on the couch, eating his cigar, neither in this world nor in any other. A breathing corpse.

‘Come,’ said Mrs Jennings. ‘Come.’

Out of the parlour, back into the hall. A distant sound of a record player. Tinsley inclined his head. He recognized the voice as Connie Francis, although the title of the song itself eluded him. It was upbeat, fast-paced, the type of song that made feet tap and fingers click.

They were going towards it. The song, although enjoyable from a distance, would become quite the irritant if it was near to his office. That would have to be dealt with.

A long corridor that led to a dead end. To the left was a set of double-doors, cracked open to reveal the room within. It was from here the music was coming, loud and echoing.

‘Who is playing that racket?’ asked Tinsley, bringing Mrs Jennings to a halt. ‘It’s ridiculously loud. Is there a concert hall in there or something?’

‘The library, sir.’

‘The library? How is anyone to browse books in that noise?’

He went to the doors, peering in. There was a Queen Anne chair set just out of view. He could see one of the chair’s wooden legs, and a single human leg with it, which he assumed was attached to a body. In the middle of the carpeted floor, however, was a man dancing to the song that was playing, if dancing included swaying and moving one’s shoulders quite slinkily indeed. He had his back to the doors, a cigarette in one hand, a near-empty tumbler of scotch or whiskey in the other. The dark curls on his head bounced with his movements, and although he was clearly quite drunk, he was still somewhat in beat with the song.

‘Turn it off,’ said a tired voice. The owner of the leg, he assumed. She sat upright, and her other leg swung itself down to join the one already in view. ‘Ricky, please. You can play your music anywhere. Just let me have the library. Ricky. Ricky!’

The owner of the name finally reacted. He turned on his heel, placing his cigarette between his teeth. ‘Come on, Marzia. I’m bored as all hell. Dance with me.’

‘I don’t want to dance. I want to read.’

‘You always want to read.’

‘Go annoy Dani.’

He took a drag on his cigarette, a deep one that made the tip glow hot, hot, hot, crackle and sizzle. When he spoke, the smoke curled out from between his lips. ‘I’ll turn the music off if you have a drink with me.’

‘It’s half-twelve. I’m not having a drink with you.’

He suddenly sank to his knees, flopping onto his side on the floor. His cigarette found its way back to his mouth. The tumbler rolled across the carpet, leaving a trail of wetness behind it. The crystal sparkled in the cold winter sunlight from outside. ‘I can’t stand this house. I’m going to go insane.’

‘You already are insane.’

‘Shut up.’

Mrs Jennings cleared her throat, quietly, just for Tinsley to hear. ‘Your office, sir.’

Tinsley looked at her. Then he nodded and followed.

His office was dark, dusty wood. Mahogany. It would look beautiful once a polishing cloth had been taken to it. A thick, sturdy desk, with three drawers across the top and three drawers down either side. The chair, a bit rickety, a bit old. He might look into getting a new one that wouldn’t buckle under a feather’s weight. Empty bookshelves sat along the wall behind the desk, currently serving as some sort of arachnid apartment block, with a dead crusting wasp or two for good measure. A heavy smell of dust, but at least it wasn’t the smell of gardenias and honeysuckle (although he could see them lurking just out the window, branches tap-tap-tapping, _let me in, let me in)._

The last of the summer’s wasps sat on some of the leaves, wings glistening like wet gemstones. He would have to remember to keep the windows closed until they were all dead or sleeping. Wasps were nasty in their last days. They would rather go out with a sting than a death rattle.

His briefcase of favoured personalia had been set down beside the desk. ‘Thank you, Mrs Jennings.’

‘Will that be all, sir?’

He crouched down in front of the briefcase, undid the clasps. ‘No. I didn’t get a chance to finish my coffee. I’ll have a fresh one, whenever you’re ready. One sugar, no milk.’

‘Right away, sir.’

‘And an ashtray, if you get the chance.’

‘I’ll have one brought to you now.’

‘And if you’re passing the library again, tell them to turn off the music. I can hardly hear myself think.’

Her face stiffened, as though she was about to say something but stopped herself at the last minute. ‘I’ll try my best, sir.’

‘And I want this room cleaned by morning.’

‘Yes, sir. Apologies. We weren’t expecting you to arrive so soon.’

‘It’s fine. You can go.’

He unpacked his briefcase; black Waterman with gold detailing, pot of black ink, leatherbound notebook, Ronson table lighter, bronze letter opener with its porcelain handle, alarm clock. All the necessities.

By the time he had finished setting up his office and Mrs Jennings had returned with his coffee it was almost five o'clock. The storm outside was in full swing. Rain struck the window, running down the glass in waves that melted the outside world into one dark palette.

The music from down the hall was still going strong. Slower, more melancholic, with the smoky voice of Etta James. Tinsley could handle that better than the fast beat of earlier. It was a compromise that, for now, would do.

* * *

The family didn’t eat breakfast together. This was unfortunate for Tinsley. He had been hoping to put faces to names and names to personalities at the table in the airy dining room. Not that he would typically be eating at the same table as the family, but Goldsworth had insisted. Now it was just the two of them at a table much too large and much too formal. Their dishes looked like white ships in a dark, smooth ocean, steaming away.

Tinsley eyed Goldsworth’s plate; three fried eggs still sizzling at the edges, four blackened rashers, a pile of white pudding. Then he eyed Goldsworth’s considerable belly where the shirt buttons were holding desperately tight to each other. He didn’t doubt that Goldsworth was naturally a big man, but seeing the pool of grease gathering on his plate made Tinsley a little concerned for his cholesterol. It wouldn’t do to have one’s employer take cardiac arrest so soon into their employment.

‘Have a proper breakfast, Tinsley,’ said Goldsworth, stuffing a rasher, fat and all, into his mouth. He spoke around it, spluttering, dripping. ‘Porridge oats? That won’t keep you full.’

‘It’s very filling, actually, sir.’

‘Well it won’t keep you happy. _This-’_ A gesture at his own plate. ‘-keeps a man happy. Porridge oats and honey and fruit are for women.’

Tinsley continued eating. _Women,_ he wanted to say, _are often in the right about such things._ But he had a feeling Goldsworth wouldn’t be interested in hearing such a statement.

‘Where does your family eat their breakfasts?’ he asked instead.

It was an important question to Tinsley. His job as private secretary to the lord of the manor required precision and an environment that was predictable and relatively easy to manage. The manner this family lived in - to float around in disconnection, impossible to find - it would only lead to disaster if an urgent situation came up.

‘Oh, around. My wife in the greenhouse probably. I doubt Ricardo is even out of bed. Daniela is probably out riding - she spends more time on that bloody horse than on her own two feet. Marzia lives in the library. I’m almost certain she must sleep there.’

A butler came along with the day’s paper on a silver tray. Goldsworth waved it away, disinterested. Tinsley raised a hand, very much interested, taking the paper from the tray and unfolding it. Comforting crinkle of thin paper, scent of freshly-printed ink, still a little warm.

‘How long does your son usually stay in bed?’ he asked.

‘Who knows. He can do whatever he wants as long as he does it out of my way.’

Tinsley watched him cut into one of his eggs, silver knife slicing into the bulbous yolk, sending its yellow contents cascading into the grease. It was making him queasy. He looked back at the morning’s paper, tilting the corner a little to block Goldsworth’s plate from his view.

‘Well, sir, if you don’t mind me saying,’ he began, leaving a brief pause for any objection that might come. When it didn’t, he continued. ‘The basis of any successful and respected family is structure. Your son should be out of bed. Your family should be at this table, eating together.’

A guffaw. ‘If you can get my son out of bed before midday, you can work miracles.’

Tinsley nodded, closing over the paper and setting it aside. ‘Give me ten minutes.’

Another guffaw, this time into a cup of coffee. ‘Good luck to you.’

Tinsley stopped by the nearest butler, quietly asking which bedroom was Ricardo’s. Then it was the long trek across the manor to find it. His footsteps echoed against the tiled floor, the palm of his hand made a soft brushing sound against the smooth wood of the banister. Outside the large window on the second floor, the tip of a rowan tree, and the sweet song of a red-breasted robin. Tinsley watched it hop from branch to branch, small and proud.

‘They’re cute, aren’t they?’

Tinsley looked over his shoulder at the woman who had spoken. It was the same woman who had been in the library the day before, trying to get the music to stop playing. Marzia. She was small and narrow-framed, boyish, clad in brown corduroy trousers, a dark green turtleneck, and a tweed jacket. She had her dark hair drawn back in an elaborately untidy manner. Her shoes were burnished Balmorals. On her wrist was an interesting gold piece, styled in a gripping hand, the middle finger and thumb touching.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I find them quite charming.’

‘They’re very territorial, you know. They can fight to the death over territory. They peck at the back of the other’s skull-’ She gave the back of her own head a light tap. ‘-to try and decapitate them. Sometime they’ll continue doing it, even if their opponent is already dead. I remember finding a mangled corpse of one on the lawn last year. Fascinating.’ She had joined him at the window now, watching the little bird tweeting away. ‘I wonder if this one was the culprit, hm?’

Tinsley didn’t know how to respond to all this. It wasn’t exactly a topic of conversation that he enjoyed. ‘...Could it not have been a cat?’

‘No,’ she said ponderously as she moved towards the stairs. ‘There were no bite marks…’

She stopped at the top step for a moment, as if in sudden and deep thought, before recovering and descending the stairs lightly, rhythmic hops, not quite unlike a little bird herself. Tinsley found himself waiting until the sound of her footsteps had gone before moving on himself.

When he found Ricardo Goldsworth’s door, nestled away in the west wing, he knocked immediately. _One two three._ ‘Mr Goldsworth, sir. It’s ten o’clock.’

The reply was hoarse. ‘Morning or night?’

‘Morning.’

There was no more talking after this. Just silence. Tinsley knocked again.

‘It’s time you got out of bed, sir.’

‘Who the hell are you?’ came the indignant response. ‘Leave me alone!’

Tinsley opened the door. The smell of stale smoke and alcohol fumes were a punch in the chest. He covered his nose and mouth with his hand. Where were the windows? They had to be opened. Immediately. 

A figure moved in the four-poster bed. ‘Excuse me? What in the world do you think you’re doing?’

‘Do you mind if I open the windows? It would be good for you.’

‘No. Go away. Christ, leave me in _peace.’_

Tinsley’s eyes were beginning to adapt to the darkness, the deep haze. A large armoire beside the door, a chest of drawers beside an opening that led to a murky ensuite. A bookcase, overflowing. A large freestanding mirror propped in the corner, reflecting the silhouettes of the room. ‘Your breakfast will go cold in the kitchen if you don’t hurry.’

‘I don’t eat breakfast.’ An affronted sigh. ‘Who are you? I don’t know you.’

‘I’m your father’s new private secretary, sir.’

A sneer. ‘Private secretary? I know private secretaries. First up in the morning, last to bed at night. Always coming and going. Surviving on secrets and dramatics.’

‘And coffee,’ added Tinsley. ‘I enjoy a nice cup of coffee.’

The wrinkled nose remained in place. ‘You’re not funny.’

‘Good thing I’m not your personal jester then, sir.’ He whipped open the curtains, letting the grey light blast into the muggy room. A pained groan rose from behind him, and the bedsprings squeaked as a body flopped back onto them. ‘I’m your personal alarm clock. Your personal dietitian. Your personal doctor. Your personal calendar and personal diary. I will provide any personal services needed to make sure this house and the family within works like a well-oiled machine.’

A suspicious silence. All that was visible of Ricardo Goldsworth was a head of black curls, two thick black eyebrows, and two shiny black eyes above a duvet. ‘Provide any service we need, hm? Or enforce any service you want upon us?’

Tinsley fixed him with a calm, collected stare. ‘Whichever is necessary at any given time, sir.’

‘I’m not a sir, I’m a lord.’ He hauled himself from under the covers with considerable effort, making a half-hearted attempt at a hymn as he fixed the waistband of his boxer shorts. _‘I am risen from the dead and I am lord, every knee shall bow, every tongue confess...’_ He picked up his cigarettes, struck a match and lit one. ‘Mornings are bloody boring. Don’t wake me so early again.’

‘Your father-’

‘You can go. Now.’

Tinsley pressed the tip of his tongue against the back of his teeth. ‘Will I have your breakfast brought to the dining table, sir? Or would you prefer it in bed?’

‘You can have my breakfast tossed out with the rubbish for all I care.’ He had pushed open the window in order to smoke out of it, his torso in the open air, the morning light smooth against the lines of his back, the dimples at the base of his spine. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Tinsley, sir.’

‘Well, Tinsley. Don’t become a nuisance, alright?’

‘I’ll try my very best, sir.’

Tinsley left, closing the door behind him. A rare defeat, but he would accept it for now. It was a step in the right direction.


	2. I Won't Tell Anyone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the name of the story to Acedia, which means _"the capital sin of sloth, the implication being, as a common phrase goes, “idle hands are the devil’s playground.”_

The greenhouse seemed less of a greenhouse than a suite of rooms jammed in among the flowers. 

The first room was tiled, with a collection of wicker furniture scattered throughout. Heart-leaf crawled across the metal rafters. In the right-hand corner was a gargantuan banana tree, its long, wide leaves touching the glass roof. White and brown pots of elephant’s ear took up most of the far left corner, and in the shadier areas, pots of calathea. They must have been misted recently; glimmering droplets of water sat on their leaves.

It was humid and sticky. Tinsley was already pulling at his collar. He cleared his throat and called out, ‘Lady Goldsworth?’

No one replied.

There was a door beside the banana tree. Tinsley shrugged off his suit jacket and left it in the hall before unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up his sleeves. Then it was back into the stifling warmth and through the door beside the banana tree.

Immediately, it was cooler. Not a whole lot, but a little bit. The short hallway was covered, and a small cushioned couch sat along the wall, facing out through the ivy-laden glass and into the garden. The couch was crowded in by pots of narrow-leaved bottle trees with their braided bases. Ferns sat in a thick row underneath the windows. Tinsley let a hand brush through their feathery leaves as he passed by.

Wind chimes hung limp with no breeze to stir them, their numerous jewels and precious metals sparkling softly in the dull light from outside. How lonely they looked, how defeated. Tinsley moved close to one, narrow chimes hanging from a metal half-moon, and he blew gently on it, just to give it something to do. It sang, light but lonesome.

The next room wasn’t as big as the first, but it was large nonetheless. His eyes didn’t study the plants this time; they jumped right to the ice bucket holding a sweating bottle of white wine beside an empty armchair. There was a wine glass too, and the condensation on the bottom half of the glass betrayed the fact it had, until recently, been full.

‘Lady Goldsworth?’ he called again, hands clasped at his lower back. It was unusual for him to have to raise his voice. He prided himself on his subtle talent of getting a single person in a crowded room to notice he needed to talk to them, without anyone else even batting an eye. ‘Lunch is about to be served in the dining room.’

‘I don’t eat in the dining room.’ A woman, in her mid-fifties, wearing flowy trousers, a satin blouse, and white high-heels. Gold jewelry hung from her ears and neck, bedecked her hands and wrists. She had the same dark eyes and olive skin as the rest of the family. Her hair was chopped to her shoulders, dark and streaked with grey. ‘I’ll have my lunch here, thank you. With the plants.’

‘It might be good for you and the family to eat together at least once a day,’ suggested Tinsley.

‘Do you know what I like about the plants?’ She ran her hands over the potted fountain palms as she made her way towards him. ‘They don’t talk back. You give them everything you can and they grow into what you expect them to be. Isn’t that a nice concept? To give, and to get in return.’ She sat down on the armchair before gesturing at one of the seats across from her. ‘Sit for a moment.’

He sat down, pushing his hands down his thighs to grip his knees. A trickle of sweat ran down his spine. He fought the urge to shiver. ‘I don’t have much time, I’m afraid. Work to do.’

‘Oh, play first,’ she said, fetching another wine glass from underneath the drinks trolley and filling it for him. _Clink. Glug glug glug._ ‘Here.’

Tinsley wasn’t one for drinking so early, but he couldn’t exactly say that, seeing as she had clearly had at least one glass of wine already. With a neutral face, he took a sip. Cold and crisply refreshing, if a little acidic for his liking. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re the new private secretary, yes? Charles Tinsley?’

‘Yes, ma’am. I arrived yesterday. I would have liked to meet everyone then, but-’

‘How do you like the wine?’

He blinked before looking down at the glossy liquid. White wine always looked so odd to him, as if its surface swam separately to the rest. ‘Oh. It’s… It’s very nice.’

‘That’s good to hear.’ She picked up her own cup, took a quick taste between her lips. ‘It’s a French Sauvignon Blanc I’ve grown quite fond of. A little bit expensive. I’m just lucky Alejandro likes it as much as I do. Alejandro is my husband. Your employer. His sightings will become rare in time. None of us ever see him. I hardly even do, and I’m his wife.’ Another sip. ‘Are you married, Tinsley?’

He shook his head.

She raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m surprised, a handsome man like yourself. Have you ever been married?’

He shook his head again. ‘No. I don’t think it’s for me.’

‘It wasn’t for me either. But I didn’t have the privilege of choosing whether or not I gave up my life for another. It’s a man’s world, Tinsley. You should be thankful for that every day.’ She dropped her gaze, took another mouthful of wine before placing the glass aside. ‘And you should be thankful for the fact that, should you wish to, you could walk out the front door of this house and never come back again.’

‘Well, let’s hope I won’t ever wish to do that.’

‘You will. One day. It will come suddenly. And it will remain unbearable for the rest of your days.’ She suddenly extended her hand, fingers spread to show her rings. She wiggled her middle finger. ‘Guess how much this cost.’

Tinsley looked at her. Then he leaned forwards to inspect the ring more closely. A gold band, and a large ruby set into a nest of white diamonds. Glitzy. Glamorous. A bit too much for his liking. ‘I can’t quite say, ma’am. I’m afraid pricing jewelry isn’t my forté.’

‘It cost £2,725,’ she said musingly. ‘Alejandro got it for my birthday. Or, more accurately, as an apology for forgetting my birthday.’ She looked at the jewel, how the light bounced off it. ‘Rubies are a favourite of mine. I like their history. Ancient Sanskrit scriptures referred to them as the “king of gemstones”. The Hindus believed they could achieve rebirth as royalty if they sacrificed rubies to Krishna, and in China the rank of a mandarin was shown by the colour-tone of the ruby on his ring. My ruby is from Burma, I believe. 1.35 carats, and the diamonds are 0.50 carats. The gold band is 18 karat.’ She leaned forwards as if sharing a secret between friends. ‘I took it to the jewelers to make sure it wasn’t a fake. Not that Alejandro would skimp on price, but he would enjoy watching me flash around fake jewelry like a gullible fool. Do you think I’m a gullible fool, Tinsley?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Not at all.’

‘Good.’ She sat back, resting her arm along the back of the couch. ‘Some pieces went missing from my room a short while ago. The first is a matching piece to my ring. It’s a necklace, worth £4,719. Then another ruby piece, although it’s mainly white diamond, worth £1,755. A bracelet, again with rubies, set in white gold. £3,669. There’s an emerald piece that’s almost identical to the ruby bracelet, worth £4,125. Then a selection of rings that come to around £15,000 altogether. Did you get all that?’

Tinsley’s head was reeling with the prices being thrown at him. ‘So someone has stolen almost £32,000 worth of your jewelry?’

She raised her eyebrows, mildly impressed. ‘You have a quick mind.’

‘Have you gone to the police about this?’

‘No. Because I have a hunch as to who stole it.’ She took a deep breath through her nose. ‘It was someone in this house.’

‘A staff member?’

‘No.’

Tinsley frowned. ‘A family member?’

‘Yes. Of course. They’ve probably already pawned it all off around the county. And who am I to condemn them? If it frees them from the ungenerous hand of my husband, I can only wish them luck. Money is a prison, Tinsley. A cell with the key in the pocket of another.’ She refilled her wine glass, her eyes distant but bright. ‘You won’t speak a word of this to anyone, yes? Especially my husband. This news of jewelry… It wouldn’t make him happy.’

‘Of course, ma’am. I won’t tell anyone.’

The reply was automatic, one that had left his lips many times before. _Surviving on secrets and drama._ Isn’t that what Ricky had said to him? Perhaps he was correct, in a way (though secrets weren’t nourishing or fulfilling, they _did_ have the ability to make one’s appetite vanish).

Tinsley placed his wine aside. The taste of it was making his stomach turn. ‘I have to get back to work now, ma’am.’

‘What day is it? Sunday, yes? Alejandro usually visits his mother on Sundays.’

‘Yes, I saw that in his diary.’

‘Let me know when you’re leaving.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

'But don't let Alejandro know that you're letting me know.'

Tinsley hovered at the door into the tantalizingly cool hall. 'Do you not accompany Lord Goldsworth in seeing his mother?'

She shook her head, tracing a fingertip around the rim of her wine glass. 'No, no. She's not very fond of me.'

'...I'm sorry to hear that, ma'am.'

'Oh, I'm not. I'd be worried if she did like me. She's an awfully unpleasant woman. Awfully, awfully.'

* * *

Lord Goldsworth’s mother, Carmela, lived in a fully-staffed red brick townhouse in the village. The interior was cold and musty. The carpet, curtains, and couches were all patterned, but their colours were dull. Tinsley was overcome with the feeling of having walked into a sepia-toned photograph.

The kitchen was no better. Tinsley swiftly came to the conclusion that Carmela did not feel the cold at all. Surely she would have to start pumping boiling water through the radiators at some point soon. Only this morning he had stepped out of the manor's front door and caught the cold, sharp smell of snow on the way, saw it in the fluffy grey clouds that covered the western sky.

Carmela's maid filled a pot of tea and placed it on the tray along with two bone china teacups, a matching milk jug, and a matching sugar bowl, before scurrying into the living room with it all. Then she returned to make herself and Tinsley cups.

Tinsley took his with a gracious smile. The handle of the teacup was icy to touch, as though it had been sitting unused in the back of some cabinet for quite some time. Thankfully, the tea itself was hot.

Tinsley sipped it and grimaced. ‘Did someone put sugar in this?’ he asked, turning to the maid.

Her face paled. ‘Oh, gosh, I must have given you the lady’s tea and given the lady yours! How silly I am.’

‘It’s fine, it’s fine. I’ll make myself a fresh cup.’ He poured the sugary tea down the drain, filling the kettle and setting it on the stove. ‘I have no idea how the lady still has all her teeth.’

‘She doesn’t. She wears porcelain veneers, sir.’

‘Ah, I see.’ He rinsed his cup to ensure all the sugary syrup that had gathered in the bottom was gone. ‘For future reference, you probably shouldn’t be telling strangers such things. The lady might want to keep the details of her dental health quiet.’

The maid reddened. ‘Oh. Yes. Of course.’

Mr Goldsworth called from the other room. Tinsley abandoned his tea-making and hurried in. A difficult task, to hurry but appear unhurried, but he had mastered it long ago.

‘You called, sir?’

‘Go out to the tobacconist and get me my cigars, would you?’ said Goldsworth, waving a few pound notes at him. ‘And some Woodbine for my mother.’

‘Yes, sir.’

They had been sitting in that room for an hour already, having ashtrays brought to them by the butler whenever they needed one, having tea and coffee and sweetmeats delivered upon silver trays. Tinsley had been with the family a few days now, and they had yet to attend a single public meeting, or do anything for the town at all. Not a hint of charitable behaviour on their part. They seemed to spend their time eating and drinking, lounging around, avoiding each other, indulging themselves in their vices.

Tinsley typically enjoyed the rush of his work. He enjoyed the pressure, the last-minute disasters that he had to fix before anyone else could notice them. Here, with the Goldsworths, he felt like nothing more than a butler. Fetching cigarettes, fetching drinks, walking all over the house just to try and find Marzia or Ricardo or Lucía and tell them breakfast or lunch or dinner was served. Most of the time they wouldn't even eat the meal the chef had prepared, instead choosing to graze on delicacies throughout the day. He hadn't even caught a glimpse of the eldest child, Daniela, except from one morning when he'd seen her from the second floor window, leading her horse towards the gates.

He needed real, palpable responsibility. He needed something to happen.

'You took your sweet time,' said Carmela, taking the cigarettes from him. Her nose always wrinkled when she spoke to staff, as if they all smelled unpleasant to her. 'My lighter needs refilling. Do that for me.'

Tinsley pressed his lips in a line and took her lighter. Her fingers touched his, and they were papery dry, her nails in need of a clean. He fought the urge to wipe his hand against his coat. 'I'll do that now, ma'am.'

'You might as well do mine too,' said Mr Goldsworth, holding his lighter in the vague direction of Tinsley without looking at him. 'We'll use matches for now. But hurry up with it.'

'Very well, sir.'

Tinsley left the room, closing the door behind him. Then he closed his eyes and sighed.

* * *

Later that night, as he was dealing with Mr Goldsworth's correspondence, the sound of voices from down the corridor tore his focus away from the work in front of him. He sat back in his seat, letting his pen rest against the desk. Yes, there were voices, loud and angry. He checked his watch; half eleven at night. Loud voices were never a good sign, but especially at night.

He looked quite untidy, with his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows and his tie loose around his collar, but surely the rest of the family would be in their pajamas anyway. So he stood up and went to investigate.

The voices were coming from the parlour. He knew this because he could see Marzia in a quilted dressing robe, crouched down at the door with her ear to the keyhole. Quietly, he walked up behind her, before saying, 'You shouldn't eavesdrop.'

She didn't jump in alarm. She just turned her head to look up at him quite witheringly. Ah, so she had heard him coming. She just hadn't cared.

'Why not?' she said, still crouched down, elbows on her knees. 'Is it unbecoming of a lady?'

‘No,' he said. 'You’ll just hear something you might not want to hear.’

Marzia straightened up. ‘I don’t know if you’re a youngest child or not, but this is the only way I can get reliable information about anything going on in my family at all.’

‘I’m an only child, actually.’

‘My jealousy is insurmountable.’ She gestured at the door. 'Listen. All of this is something I would never find out if I didn't listen.'

So Tinsley stayed quiet for a moment or two.

‘You promised me things you never gave,’ Lucy was shouting.

‘I promised you riches beyond your dreams and now you’re crying because-’

‘It isn’t the money I care about!’ she shouted. ‘It’s about the fact you lied to me! You told me I could have whatever I wanted and then you whisked me away to be imprisoned in this shithole! You lied!’ She took a breath. ‘The worst thing is you could’ve told me the truth and I loved you so much I would have come here anyway. But you don’t understand that. Men don’t understand that. Women love in a way that even eternity has to bow to. And men laugh at it.’

Tinsley looked at Marzia, who was leaning against the door, running a finger along the patterns carved into it. ‘You should get yourself to bed, ma’am. It’s late.’

‘I won’t be able to sleep with them shouting like they are.’

‘I’ll take care of that for you.’

He waited until she’d reluctantly left before taking hold of the door handles and pushing both sides of the door open. An unabashed entry. Make them look at him, make them understand he was in charge of the situation. His eyes found all the warning signs needed; open bottle of whiskey, open bottle of wine, plates of dinner still untouched. The air was cold, very cold.

‘Apologies, sir, ma’am,’ he said. ‘But it’s quite late. People are finding it difficult to sleep with the noise.’

There were no lights on within the room, leaving the space doused in monochromacy. The doors to the patio were open. Outside on the table were a few sputtering candles, their flames flickering like silk flags in the barely-there breeze.

There, by the couch, the dull smouldering red of Mr Goldsworth’s cigar. Tinsley focused on it.

‘It’s very cold tonight,’ he said to the cigar. ‘Snow is forecast. I could organize hot water bottles for your beds.’

Mrs Goldsworth rose up, the shadow of the couch breaking apart and releasing the shadow of a woman. ‘That would be lovely. Thank you, Tinsley.’

She walked towards him. She moved strangely, too prim, too proper, her hands floating by her sides. Tinsley let her pass. Her face, for a brief moment, was in the yellow light of the hall, and it was deathly still.

Mr Goldsworth grumbled for a moment. ‘I’m not going to bed yet. Have someone bring me a hot whiskey.’

‘Right away, sir.’

After delivering the request to the kitchen he checked his watch. It was high time he hit the hay too. He went back to his office, put the lid back on his fountain pen, blotted the last words he had written, and turned off the lamp. He took his jacket from the coat rack and closed the door behind him.

Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs he realized he wasn't the only one still up and about. Ricky stood at the top, fully-dressed in black trousers, a white shirt, a black bowtie, and a deep red waistcoat. There was a suit jacket in his hand. He smiled at Tinsley before sitting on the banister and sliding all the way down to land lightly on his feet. A series of movements carried out with fluid familiarity. Tinsley imagined he had been sliding down this banister ever since he was tall enough to be able to sit himself on it.

'I wasn't aware you were going to an event tonight, sir,' said Tinsley, detecting a subtle cologne in the air. 'I think the chauffeur is long asleep.'

'I have a friend picking me up,' was the vague response.

'And where are you off to?'

Ricky just grinned and tapped the side of his nose. _Our little secret._

Tinsley was all too familiar with secrets. His past employers had poured them into him, filled him up with them, but he had never overflowed, not once. He was a bottomless pot. He would take anything thrown into him. But sharing a secret with Ricky Goldsworth, even the one harmless secret, set off a discomfort in him he was entirely unfamiliar with.

He looked at Ricky, and Ricky looked back with those bright black eyes.

'I'm afraid I can't keep details of your coming and goings from your father,' said Tinsley. 'If he asks, I will have to tell.'

A scoff. 'He won't ask. He doesn't care what I do, as long as I do it out of his sight. So all you have to do is keep your mouth shut.'

Tinsley blinked at the sharpness of the words. It was one aspect of the job he had never gotten used to; being older than his charges, yet being spoken to by them as if he was a particularly stupid child. Although none had ever been as demeaning as this one. '...I'll try my best, sir.'

'Your best is supposed to be _the_ best, isn't it?' Ricky was already at the door, shrugging his suit jacket on. 'Get my coat.'

Tinsley pushed his tongue into his cheek, but despite the protestations in his mind, his body reacted as it always did; with prompt obedience.

He handed the coat to Ricky, who smiled at him with a sudden charm. 'Thank you ever so much.' Then he stood, arms by his sides. 'Well? Do you expect me to open my own doors as well?'

'I'm not a butler, sir,' muttered Tinsley, despite the fact he had already reached out and opened the door.

But Ricky had gone, hopping down the steps to where a glossy Mercury Sedan sat rumbling. Tinsley closed the door to shut out the cold.

* * *

The morning was smothered in icy mist. Tinsley didn't mind. He quite liked running in such weather. He liked how it turned his sweat cold upon his hot face. It was refreshing, and refreshment was the exact reason he jogged every morning before the world woke up.

The grounds of the manor were vast and complicated. There were no paths to follow, only gaps between trees, where the frost was so harsh that it made cobwebs glitter and grass crunch underfoot.

There was a body of water over the far west of the grounds. Too small to be a lake, too large to be a pond. The shore was silty and soft. The water was frozen over around the edges, thawing in the centre. There was a duck or two out and about already. They wandered awkwardly on the thin ice, their webbed feet slipping and sliding.

 _Only me and the ducks,_ thought Tinsley. _The ducks and I._

The crackle of car tires against gravel made him turn. He could see the manor in all its dark grandeur, and a car's headlights blinking in and out of existence through the trees. He checked his watch, tilting it to catch the limited light. Quarter past five. When he heard the car door open and the laughter and loud words spill out, he was left with no doubt; it was the young lord returning from his nighttime conquests. 

He jogged back across the grass. He could smell cigarette smoke, he could see it curling into the black sky. When he reached the last few trees he slowed, keeping hidden. Ricky and two women, sitting against the car's bonnet, passing a bottle of red wine between them. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but not for lack of noise. They were just slurring too much.

Tinsley rolled up the sleeves of his sweater, stepping out from the foliage and into the glare of the headlights. The three people at the car jumped in alarm. 'Sorry, sir, but your family is sleeping. Perhaps think of being a bit quieter.'

Ricky straightened up off the bonnet, a hand to his chest. 'Jesus Christ, Kingsley. You scared the shit out of me. Manifesting like some bloody ghost.'

 _Kingsley?_ Tinsley glared at him. _You know my name. You said it only yesterday._

'Who's this?' asked one of the women. A French accent. Large dark eyes with thick lashes, like a doe, and skin as white and clear as moonlight. Her hair was dark, a smooth, short style. Her lips were painted a red so dark it bordered on black. 'A new addition to the family?'

'My father decided he needed a private secretary,' said Ricky, holding his cigarette between his teeth and another wine bottle between his knees as he worked on unscrewing the cork from it. 'He began to get too panicked about seating plans for dinners, seeing as his cock has been in almost every woman in town. It got so stressful he insisted on getting professional help for his self-inflicted struggles.'

'Disgusting,' said the other woman. Her skin was dark and shiny, her dreadlocked hair set atop her head and wrapped in patterned satin. 'No offense to your father, but sometimes I can't understand how you two are related.'

'He looked like me when he was my age,' said Ricky moodily. 'Which doesn't bode well for me. I'd rather just jump off a bridge at forty than grow old and look like him.'

Tinsley frowned. 'Forty isn't old.'

Ricky looked at him. 'You're forty?'

'Yes. Forty-one.'

A quick once-over and an even quicker smirk thrown at his friends. 'Well if I look like you at your age, I might reconsider offing myself so soon.'

A few snickers in response. The dark-skinned woman straightened up off the car and flicked her cigarette aside, a small, private shooting star, landing in a spray of sparks on the gravel.

‘We have to get back,’ she said, walking around to the driver’s door. The other woman kissed Ricky on both cheeks before going to the passenger door. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow, yes?’

He pressed his fingertips to his lips before letting his hand fall towards them in a most romantic kiss. They laughed and closed their doors. The engine growled to life.

Tinsley looked at Ricky. ‘You should stop drinking now, sir.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘It’s late. You should go to bed.’

‘Technically, it’s very early. The day’s only begun!’

 _‘Your_ day should be winding to an end.’ He took the bottle from Ricky’s hand. It wasn’t a grab or a snatch. He just took it, with such firmness and confidence Ricky could only stare at him in surprise. ‘You’ll drink yourself into an early grave if you keep this pace up, sir.’

He left before Ricky could release the tantrum that was building behind his eyes, like a bottle of champagne that had been shaken too much and was about to pop its cork into the nearest person's face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated it a tiny bit from when I posted it yesterday, adding some dialogue i forgot lol


	3. A Single Magpie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yea im speedwriting this shit

Daniela Goldsworth was tall and broad, built like her father, with his blonde hair too. Her face was sombre, her brows stitched into a permanent frown. She was the sort of woman that left people unsure as to whether or not she liked or disliked them. Most of the time, she didn’t feel anything about them at all. They were them, and she was she. There was no need to think any deeper than that.

Her day-to-day clothing consisted of shooting gear; a tweed hunting jacket, a jumper and shirt, comfortable trousers tucked into long knitted socks, and riding boots. Occasionally she donned a flat cap if the sun was peeking through the clouds. Frequently she donned her rifle.

Hunting was a passion of hers. Birds, mainly. She thought deer too stupid, and foxes too sly. So why birds? Because of their heavenly association, their enviable flight through the air. It was jealousy that made Daniela want to pull the trigger.

Marzia frequently accused her of the Old French _rancor,_ a deep-seated ill will to anything pure and divine.

‘Well there’s no need for you to be concerned, then,’ said Daniela. ‘If my ill will is only to those _pure_ and _divine.’_

Marzia stuck her tongue out at her, but the next morning she awoke and opened her bedroom door, and on the floor outside was a dead white pigeon, or as it is known in the Bible, a dove. But Marzia didn’t scream or cry. She crouched down and took hold of its wings and spread it out with its bloody breast to the ceiling and its thin little legs stiff in _rigor mortis._

‘My God.’ Tinsley stood at the top of the stairs, a newspaper folded under his arm. He wore his typical outfit; a tailored suit, in grey today, with a darker grey waistcoat, a crisp white shirt and black tie. ‘What in the world is that?’

‘The Holy Spirit.’

‘I’ll get someone to throw it outside, ma’am. It’s probably diseased.’ He took a few steps towards Mr Goldsworth’s rooms before turning back. ‘How did it get in here? Do you have cats around?’

Marzia shook her head.

Tinsley gave the dead bird one last disturbed look before moving on. ‘Strange.’

Marzia liked that about Tinsley. When presented with something odd or out-of-place, he would simply acknowledge its strangeness - _Strange,_ he'd say, _How strange -_ and then he'd move on without skipping a beat.

She hopped across the landing and into the east wing of the manor, her movement making the dead bird in her hand flap its wings, _slap slap slap_. She rapped her knuckles against her sister’s door before stepping back and teetering on her heels. ‘Daniela! You’re in trouble.’

‘What?’ The door opened, revealing Daniela midway through buttoning her shirt. Her eyes found the limp body of the dove in Marzia's hand. ‘Because of the stupid bird? It was a joke. Who did you tell?’

‘I didn’t tell anyone. The private secretary saw.’

‘The what?’

‘Father’s new private secretary. You know, the tall one.’

‘The tall one who’s built like a pencil? Yes, I’ve seen him around. I thought he was a new butler or something of the sort.’ She put her hand out. ‘Here, give the thing to me.’

Marzia passed the limp body over, and Daniela went straight to her balcony and flung it out into the trees. Branches clacked together and dead leaves rustled. Then, a dull _thud._

‘A fox can have it for breakfast,’ said Daniela. _‘Bon appétit,_ and all that.’

Marzia mimicked sucking sauce off her fingers. _'Délicieuse.'_

* * *

Tinsley stood at the side of Mr Goldsworth's bed, hands clasped behind his back as he waited for Goldsworth to finish the article. 'Were you aware they were talking so unfavourably about you, sir?'

'Oh, I had a hunch. It doesn't matter anyway. Let them think what they want to think. I have better things to be at.'

Tinsley took the paper that was being waved at him. He folded it back up with deft movements before tucking it back under his arm. 'Public opinion should be of interest to you, sir. If the public grows tired of you, that might be manageable, but if the public grows sick of you... Such a situation is a bit harder to recover from.'

Mr Goldsworth snorted. 'There is a line between us and them, Tinsley. A line which neither side has ever crossed. They must remain curious about our lives. They won't get rid of us. They don't have the authority, the means, or the wherewithal.'

Tinsley didn't fall for this wording. He knew that he was part of 'us' for as long as it suited the family, but if he acted out of hand, he would very swiftly be lumped in with 'them'. 'You've been invited to a charity dinner by the Reverend Kemble next Sunday. I would advise you to attend.'

'A charity dinner? Absolutely not. I have better things to be getting on with.'

'Then someone should go in your stead,' persisted Tinsley, stepping back as Goldsworth heaved himself out of bed. 'To represent the family. It won't end well if the townspeople are continuously shunned.'

'Christ, just send someone else.'

'Your son?'

'No, not him.'

'Your wife?'

'No. Send Daniela.'

‘If I can get a hold of her, sir.’

‘Right, right. Is that everything?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then leave me. Is breakfast on the table?’

‘It was being plated as I came up the stairs.’

‘Excellent, excellent.’

Tinsley closed the door behind him and headed back towards the stairs. He paused, one foot on the first step to let a footman pass by with breakfast for Ricky. He already knew what was on the menu for today; he had commandeered the diets of the family, including more fruits and vegetables, and less grease and fat.

He wondered if Ricky had managed to haul himself from his bed yet.

To stem his curiosity, he followed the footman to Ricky’s door, which was still closed. Tinsley checked his watch; half-nine.

He knocked upon the door. ‘Mr Goldsworth, sir?’

To his surprise, an answer. ‘Come in.’

Tinsley opened the door and stepped in, moving aside to let the footman bring in the tray of breakfast. The curtains were drawn back from the balcony doors. ‘Ah, you’re awake, sir.' _For once._

Ricky sat on one of the balcony chairs in his deep red dressing robe, his feet resting on the table A cigarette burned low in his hand. He was looking out over the flower-infested garden to the lake beyond. ‘I hope it won't devastate you to know that I haven’t even gone to bed yet.’

‘You wouldn’t have done such a thing just to spite me, would you have, sir?' asked Tinsley, watching as Ricky drifted aimlessly back into the bedroom. 'You really shouldn’t. It would make me feel awfully important.’

‘Well my father did dub me a spiteful little man,’ replied Ricky airily. ‘Why not live up to the title? Especially as it comes so easily to me.’ He sauntered to a halt by the table, picking a ripe nectarine from the plate - his wrist touched against that of the footman - and scrutinizing it. ‘Fruit?’

‘Fruit would be good for you, sir.’

‘I don’t like fruit.’

‘You don’t like any fruit at all?’

‘No.’

‘I find that hard to believe, due to the varying flavours of the fruits of the world.’

Ricky dropped the nectarine back into the bowl, making the tray rattle. ‘Stop talking to me like I’m a child.’

‘Apologies, sir. Sometimes your attitude makes me forget that you’re not one.’

Ricky looked over his shoulder at him, an eyebrow raised. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to start waving around a sense of humour too. It would be unfair for one man to have so many favourable qualities. Charm, looks, elegance. Perfection tires me, you see.’ He stubbed out his cigarette before pouring himself a cup of coffee. ‘Tell me an imperfection of yours.’

‘An imperfection?’

‘Yes, an imperfection. A vice, a flaw. Surely you have one.’

Tinsley pondered this, tapping his foot against the floorboards. ‘I can find it difficult to read analogue clocks, sir.’

Ricky, halfway to his first sip of coffee, lowered his cup again. ‘What?’

‘Analogue clocks. I find them difficult to read.’

‘But you have a watch on your wrist right now.’

‘Ah, yes, you see, what I’ve done is memorized certain positions of the little hand,’ said Tinsley, glancing at his wrist. ‘I know quarter past, half, and quarter to. If someone asks me the time, I just say whichever one the hour is closest to.’

Ricky seemed interested, if confused. ‘So if it’s twenty past?’

‘I say quarter past.’

‘And if it’s twenty-five past?’

‘Well, I’d say half, I suppose.’ He clasped his hands behind his back again. ‘Reading the time accurately on a watch face can take me a little while to do. It throws me off, all the arms and hands and the different meanings to the numbers.’

The rarest hint of a smile. ‘That is awfully ridiculous.’

‘Oh, entirely ridiculous, sir.’

Ricky came closer with a mischievous look in his eyes. ‘But not quite a flaw, or a vice. So tell me, are you a coward, or a liar? Are you a picky eater? Do you have a penchant for alcohol or cigarettes?’

‘I enjoy a cigarette four times a day, sir. One when I wake up, one after lunch, one after dinner, and one before bed. Other than that, I only smoke when one is offered to me.’

The smile had slipped somewhat. ‘Christ, you’re incredibly boring.’

‘Perhaps my ulterior motive is to bore a certain insomniac to sleep?’

Ricky took a mouthful of his coffee, his dark eyes not leaving Tinsley’s face. ‘Well, consider it done.’

‘Excellent, sir. I’ll be on my way then.’

‘Yes, scurry on.’

Tinsley paused in closing the door over behind him. 'I don't scurry, sir.'

Ricky looked at him, as if taken aback by the fact a member of staff could have thoughts of their own. Tinsley closed the door over. He had more pressing matters to attend to, after witnessing what he had just witnessed.

That touching of wrist-to-wrist. Of course, such accidental touches can occur when two people are within close contact, but the lack of reaction, the apparent familiarity of the touch, was what troubled Tinsley. He knew the footman; Thomas 'Tommy' Greham, twenty-seven years of age, in the family's employment for a year and two months. He had dark auburn hair and a smattering of freckles across his face. His eyes were blue, not a remarkable shade, but a nice shade nonetheless. He was not handsome, but he was cute, in a boyish way.

Tinsley also knew Ricky Goldsworth was bisexual. It wasn't a secret within the household; it was known and accepted, and Ricky wasn't shy about any of it at all. There was, of course, some tensions as a result, seeing as he was the only son of Lord and Lady Goldsworth.

‘At your age I was fighting in a war!' Goldsworth shouted one night, making Tinsley jump awake at his desk. 'I was killing for the glory of this country’s honour! What are you?’

‘I am your son!' came Ricky's equally furious response. 'I'll remind you; your _only_ son. The only person capable of giving you an heir. I'd remember that, if I were you.’

‘You say that to spite me. I know you do.’

‘Of course I do. What else is being your son useful for.’

The unmistakable sound of a slap echoed down the hallway. By the time Tinsley had crossed his office to look down towards the entrance hall, there was no one around. Just Marzia kneeling in front of the library door, using a pen knife to scrape into the wood, _In libris libertas._ In literature, freedom.

* * *

Sunday morning. Mr Goldsworth had ordered Tinsley to take Daniela, Ricardo, and Marzia away from the house. They were irritating him, he said. He could hear their footsteps and whispers scuttling around in his mind like spiders in a drainpipe.

Ricky and Marzia had run on ahead, attempting to shove each other into the damp grass. The smell of wet earth and soft moss was heady and full. The late winter flowers were blooming in unexpected bursts of colour; violas, winter jasmine, English primroses, crocuses. Dots of colour in the otherwise murky grounds.

‘I’ve heard about you,’ said Daniela as they crossed the long grass towards the water. It was the first time she had properly spoken to him in his time at the manor.

‘Heard about me?’ replied Tinsley.

‘Yes. How you were bad news.’

‘I wasn’t bad news.’ He frowned at her. ‘Who told you such a thing?’

‘No, your character wasn't bad news, Tinsley. It was you yourself. You were bad news personified.' She reiterated what she had been told by her friends in London. 'If Charles Tinsley was seen stalking through the corridors, someone was going to get bad news delivered to them swiftly and suddenly. Some called you the resident banshee. To see you in the halls heralded grievous times, akin to death. You were like a single magpie. One for sorrow, and all that.’

‘...My job can be difficult, ma’am. It isn’t one I enjoy. But it's one I have to make sure is done. Without the knowledge of bad news, that family would have fallen into disrepair long ago.’

'Maybe they would've been better off in disrepair.'

'I couldn't allow that. I had given my word to keep the family from scandal and trouble, and I had to stick to it.'

'Sometimes sticking to one's word does more damage than good.' Her eyes sharpened on the lake ahead. 'Look. Ducks.'

She called her siblings back and they dutifully returned. Daniela handed the rifle to Tinsley.

'You shoot first,' she said.

The weapon was heavy and warm in his hands. 'What? Why?'

'Because it would be rude of me to shoot first. You better start quick. Ducks will fly away if you even breathe too loud. Look! There goes one now! Get it!'

Tinsley took aim, breathing deeply but quietly. The bird beat the air with its wings, hurrying to freedom. Little heart racing, small black eyes bright and terrified. Its throat and feathered chest, inflating and deflating rapidly, the tiny set of lungs within huffing out short breaths. He lowered the rifle.

‘I can’t do it,’ he said, not as an apology, but as a statement. ‘I won’t. It’s an innocent creature.’

‘Well you don’t know that,’ said Ricky, skipping a stone across the pond’s surface. It bounced off the surface three times before slipping away to join its brethren at the bottom of the lakebed. ‘It could have many bird crimes under its wing.’ He raised his brows. ‘It could be a bird terrorist.’

‘Or a bird fraudster,’ suggested Daniela, taking back her rifle.

‘Or a bird murderer,’ grinned Marzia. ‘All animals are murderers in their own ways, and birds kill each other all the time. Up there in the sky they have no enemies but each other. That’s nature’s way. And aren’t we part of nature?’

‘Not our Tinsley.’ Ricky moved stiffly, his arms at ninety-degree angles. ‘He. Is. A. Ro. Bot.’

‘I’m not a robot,’ he said flatly. ‘I’m just rational. You all know what rationality is, don’t you? Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t know.’

Ricky laughed, whipping his arm around, flinging another smooth stone. 'Rationality is synonymous with boredom, in my books.’

‘Of course it is.’

‘You should try a little extravagance every now and then, Tinsley. It might be the making of you.’

Daniela’s rifle exploded to life beside them, smoke billowing from the end of the barrel. Tinsley scowled at her, rubbing at his ringing ear. She didn’t notice, too busy muttering curses at the bird she had missed. The ducks splashed across the water and rose into the air in a panicked cacophony of quacks and flapping wings.

‘I’m already made, Ricky,’ he said, one hand still clamped over his ear, in case Daniela decided to fire without warning again. ‘You’re the one who’s at a loose end.’

Ricky’s arm dropped back to his side, still holding his chosen stone. ‘A loose end? Me? I’m perfectly wrapped up, thank you very much. Like a little gift in a box.’

‘You have no idea who you are,’ said Tinsley dismissively.

‘No, _you_ have no idea who I am.'

‘God, it’s like talking to a child.’

‘Then stop talking to me, pervert.’

Marzia smiled from where she was, watching their exchange with interest. She pictured them, two roosters squabbling in the dirt, or perhaps two tomcats on a wall, hissing with their hackles raised, all show, and when the fight began it would only be a quick vicious tumble, over before it started.

Daniela turned to face Tinsley, resting on her rifle like it was a cane. ‘You said that you can’t shoot an innocent creature, correct?’

‘Correct.’

‘Then what if you knew the creature was guilty of some heinous crime? Could you shoot it dead then?’

Tinsley thought it over. ‘Well, it would depend on the crime, wouldn’t it?’

‘What about me? I’m heinous in every way.’ Ricky struck a pose, hands on his hips, chin high. ‘Dani, threaten me. With convincing danger.’ He gave himself a smack in the centre of his chest. ‘Aim for the heart.’

She swung the barrel of her rifle towards him. Tinsley immediately grabbed hold of it, pushing it down to aim at the ground.

‘Don’t do that,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘It’s not funny.’

‘I wasn’t actually going to shoot him.’

‘An accidental twitch of a finger is all it would take.’

‘You don’t have to be so frightened for me, Tinsley.’ Ricky flopped down beside Marzia, spread-eagled. ‘I can take care of myself.’

‘Clearly not.’ He squinted at all of them, one by one. ‘What ages are you all?’

‘Thirty-three,’ said Dani.

‘Twenty-eight,’ said Ricky.

‘Twenty-five,’ said Marzia.

‘So you _are_ all adults. And should be fully capable of acting like so.’

‘Oh I’m sure we all have the capability,’ said Ricky. ‘Just not the dedication.’

‘We’re plagued by _evagatio mentis,’_ sighed Marzia. ‘Our restlessness, our lack of purpose, our boundless curiosity in anything that provides us with distraction. As Pascal said in his _Pensées,_ _Tous les problèmes de l'humanité proviennent de l'incapacité de l'homme à s'asseoir tranquillement dans une pièce seule._ All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.’

Dani threw her eyes to the sky. ‘Marzia studied Latin in France. She can speak it _and_ French fluently. It’s oh-so-impressive.’

‘It’s not so impressive,’ said Tinsley. ‘Lots of people can speak two languages, out there in the real world. And I do believe Pascal also said, _Rien n'est si insupportable à l'homme que d'être dans un plein repos, sans passions, sans affaires, sans divertissement, sans application._ Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care. So you should all indulge in hobbies, I think.’

Marzia sat upright, suddenly perking up. ‘Are you educated?’

‘I went to university, yes.’

‘What did you study?’

‘French and philosophy. In Cambridge.’

Ricky propped himself on an elbow. ‘Cambridge? You?’

Tinsley inclined his head at the surprised tone. ‘Did you envisage me as a lowly peasant, sir?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Well I came from a good family. Hard working. Determined. Everything your family is not.’

Ricky wrinkled his nose at him. ‘I don’t know why you’re working for us if you look upon us with such apparent disgust.’

'A question I've asked myself every day since I've arrived here.' He blew air out through his mouth. 'An entire fortnight ago.'

'It's a tiring place,' said Daniela. 'Despite the fact nothing ever happens.'

'It's in the air,' said Marzia. 'You breathe it in. The unhappiness. It makes you tired.'

'Do you want to know what my last job was?' said Tinsley. 'Private secretary to a politician in London. It was thrilling. From six in the morning to nine at night, I hardly sat for a second. And here I am now, in the middle of nowhere, babysitting three grown adults.'

'Father thinks we need to be kept an eye on,' said Daniela, her voice flat. 'He complains when none of us are talking to each other, but when we start talking he thinks we're up to something. As if we're out to get him. He's an awful idiot.'

'He always thinks people are out to get him,' said Ricky. 'I don't think he understands that he's not the centre of everyone's worlds. He's hardly a blip on my radar.'

'Unfortunately your father _is_ the centre of my world,' muttered Tinsley, wandering towards the boat that was docked at the small wooden pier. 'Whose boat is this?'

Ricky shrugged, lying back down on the cold earth. 'I don't know. Our family's.'

'Do any of you fish?'

'No,' said Daniela, joining her siblings on the ground. 'It's boring.'

Tinsley looked at the three of them before fixing on Marzia. 'I understand that there's no seats around, but ma'am, your frock is quite a good one. Your mother insisted on it returning to the house as neatly as it left.'

Marzia knew this. It wasn't a rare event that her mother tried to doll her up. She looked the most like her mother after all, and Lucy was doing as mothers did; trying to live her life again through her daughter. Yet Lucy never seemed happy with the final result. If anything, it seemed to sadden her. But her sadness was akin to anger, and it impacted those around her in a similar manner.

That morning, after dressing Marzia in the crimson frock, Lucy had let herself collapse into the chair at her vanity before taking a cigarette from the tin on the desk. Her hands shook. ‘Does anyone even know how lonely I am here? Does anyone see me?’

Marzia was at the door, a hand on the door handle, rubbing her thumb against it. Even at this distance, with the white light from the window, she could see the tears in Lucy’s eyes. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know if her mother wanted her to say anything at all. 

‘We should get a sign erected in the driveway,’ said Lucy. Her voice trembled despite her painful attempt at nonchalance. _‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here._ Perhaps have it inscribed in Latin above the door. Wouldn't that be funny? You'd be able to do it. You got a college education. French and Latin.’ A sudden burst of laughter that caught in her throat like a sob. ‘I hardly lived at all, you know. I had friends. I had a job. This house... This house will be my tomb.’

Marzia could feel her breaths beginning to stutter. The tears wouldn’t be far behind. ‘Do you... Do you want a cup of tea?’

‘No.’ Lucy’s face was turned away, staring out the window. The smoke from her cigarette curled into the air before vanishing into the white light. ‘Your father should be in hell, you know. It's where he came from. It's where he'll one day return. Why not just go back now.’

Lucy continued staring at nothing. Eventually Marzia closed the door, letting it click shut.

On her way back down the corridor she listened to nothing else but the _thud thud thud thud_ of her heeled shoes against the ground, echoing the thud of her pulse in her ears.

'I don't care about the bloody frock,' said Marzia, shifting on the grass. 'It can be washed. Discreetly.'

'She's not a child anymore,' added Daniela. 'Despite what mother thinks. We've all had to break free from her insufferable grasp. It's always a grim affair.' She accepted a cigarette and light from Ricky. 'Because then she hates you. And when she hates, she hates entirely. It seeps into every aspect of her life. You can’t have a single conversation without her bringing her hatred into it. Her days revolve around it, until all of a sudden she gets tired of it and casts it aside. But the damage she can cause in those hateful days… It’s intense. There’s no talking to her. And if you try to talk to her, you become subject to her hatred too. It lasts and lasts and lasts until it stops. A slow build, a sudden end.’

Marzia laughed, her hands in her lap, picking at her nails. ‘You know what they say; Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it was burned down in one. That’s what she does with her hate. She makes an empire out of it. It’s as if she’s proud of it. Sometimes I think she gets confused between hatred and strength.’

Daniela lay back on her elbows, blowing smoke into the air. It was thicker than usual, due to the cold. ‘It’s something we should’ve told you from the start, Tinsley; once you enter my family’s life, you don’t leave until we say so.’

Tinsley gave her a steady look. ‘I leave when I want to leave.’

‘And you don’t want to leave?’ asked Marzia.

‘No,’ said Tinsley. ‘Not yet.’

‘Personally I commend your barefaced stupidity,’ said Ricky, raising an eyebrow. It was a look Tinsley was quickly growing sick of; equal parts insolent, equal parts superior. ‘A lack of common sense and remorse can get you far in this world.’

‘I have remorse.’

‘You don’t act like it.’

‘Remorse can be felt for a long time before it’s shown.’

Marzia seemed to approve of this, her chin up and her eyes wise. ‘That can be said about any emotion, if one is masterful enough to control them. And you’re masterful, aren’t you? You must be. My father only chooses those who are the most masterful in their professions.’

Tinsley didn’t comment. He took his own box of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, lighting one behind a cupped hand. He kicked a pebble around for a moment or two, until it slipped into the shallows, still visible, but too far to get back. 'Marzia, you might know this one. _There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, T_ _here is a rapture on the lonely shore, T_ _here is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar-'_

 _'I love not Woman the less, but Man more,'_ echoed Ricky with mock-wistfulness. 'Byron knew what thoughts were to be had, didn't he?'

 _'I love not Man the less, but Nature more,'_ said Marzia sternly. 'You're so annoying, Ricky.'

Tinsley laughed. 'A hero of yours, is he, sir?'

'A rival, for lack of a better word. I could only wish to become so entangled with scandal that I'm forced to leave the country.' He pushed himself to his feet, stretching leisurely. 'Unfortunately I can hardly find a way to leave this bloody town.'

'There's not much out there,' said Tinsley, tapping the ash from his cigarette away into the sudden breeze. 'I promise you that.'

Daniela sighed heavily. 'I'm hungry. Let's head back. Lunch should be served soon, shouldn't it, Tinsley?'

'In fifteen minutes, ma'am.'

'Perfect. Let's go now.'

Tinsley took one final drag of his cigarette before flicking it away into the water, where it hissed and floated morosely. When he turned back only Ricky was waiting for him, hands in his coat pockets, his dark curls lifting lightly in the wind.

Tinsley raised an eyebrow. 'Do you need directions, sir?'

Ricky cracked a grin. 'Oh, yes, I'm awfully lost. I need someone to hold my hand and show me the way home.'

Tinsley ignored him, carrying on towards the manor. Flirtation didn't interest him anymore, least of all from the son of an employer. Ricky liked attention and he liked game-playing. Tinsley hated both of these. He only craved the simple things in life now, such as the bowl of hearty vegetable soup that was on the menu on this damp, miserable day, along with fresh-baked bread. Then, afterwards, a cup of tea at his desk, and nothing in the room but himself and the scratching of pen against paper. Blissful, busy solitude.

Ricky fell into step beside him. He was short, just about brushing Tinsley's shoulders. ‘I’m not going to fall ill and perish from a cup of poisoned tea one morning, am I, Tinsley?’

‘If such misfortune was to befall you I highly doubt I would be the only suspect.’

A laugh. He had a bright laugh, a carefree one, and it never changed, regardless of the subject being discussed. ‘I find you very strange, you know.’

‘And why is that, sir?’

‘You’re here to serve my family, yet you seem to hold us in some sort of contempt.’

‘Some of you.’

‘Well, why some and not others?’

‘I can bring myself to respect those of you who give back to society what they take away, whether it be charity or patronage or the like. What I can’t bring myself to respect is those of you who take, take, take, and never give a single thought about giving back.’

‘Oh I’ve thought about giving back, Tinsley. And the thought repulses me.’

'Well, sir.' Tinsley smiled at him. 'I don't think you have anything to give back.'

He walked on, leaving Ricky to stand in mute shock in the long grass.

'Bastard,' muttered Ricky, turning his back to the manor and lighting another cigarette. He inhaled it deeply, blew it out between his teeth. 'Educated in Cambridge. Who gives a bloody fuck.'


	4. Favourite Companions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _My rot is as hungry as me, and when God asks me about love, I always respond with cruelty._  
>  Yves Olade

A white glove on a black banister. Tinsley stood beside it, hands behind his back as he studied the situation closely. This was not the first time he had come across this white glove on this banister. If his memory was correct, he was coming across it perhaps twice weekly. What to call it? A beacon? A flare? Regardless, it was a signal from someone to someone else who could not be spoken to face-to-face.

He continued down the stairs, into the bustle of the hall. It was laundry day, and the maids were scurrying back and forth with shirts and bed sheets, white flowing fabric that caught the winter light like silken snow. Outside they already hung in lines, battalions, fluttering in the breeze. It was a rare dry day. It was now or never.

Mrs Jennings knew this. She had put the maids to washing at four that morning, pacing up and down the laundry room behind them as they scrubbed and soaked and scrubbed again. And still she was in the laundry room, sitting with the seamstress, darning socks and stockings.

‘Mrs Jennings,’ said Tinsley from the doorway. ‘No need to stand. I’m just wondering if you’ve seen Thomas around.’

‘I believe he’s on his break, sir.’

‘When you next see him, tell him I want to have a word. This evening. At around nine.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He entered the hall again, looking up at the landing, where he could see the glove still lay draped over the banister. He went back up the stairs, two at a time, and when he reached the glove he took a pen from his breast pocket, popped off the lid, and marked a small black X on the inside of the fabric. Then he went back down the stairs and into the overwhelming smell of clean laundry.

* * *

The kitchen was pleasantly warm, even with the back door open. Ricky was occupied with ransacking the pantry - cheeses, relishes, fruits - while Marzia made a mess of closing crusty bread, hardly watching her hands at all while she read from the book that lay flat on the table to her right.

‘Listen to this,’ she said, and she left the breadknife wedged halfway through the loaf in order to pick up her book. _‘Many people go through life with hardly an original thought; gravitate from one pleasure or amusement to another; gain a livelihood doing what someone else has assigned; flee boredom as best they can; marry and beget children; and then, without having made the slightest difference of any unique significance, die and decay like any animal.’_

‘Ah, yes,’ said Ricky, dumping his findings on the table and plonking himself down in a chair. ‘Wonderfully dull and discouraging. Anyway, why haven’t you sliced the bread? Christ, Marzia, you’re supposed to butcher meat, not loaves. Give it here.’

‘But don’t you get it?’ she said, tapping the page with an urgent finger. ‘That sounds like us!’

‘What are you blathering on about?’

‘None of us ever _do_ anything.’

‘I do things all the time,’ was his flippant response. He narrowed his eyes at the book, its leatherbound cover and dusty spine, as he smothered a slice of bread with brie and opened a jar of onion relish. ‘Is that that bloody book Tinsley told you to read?’

‘He didn’t tell me to read it,’ she replied disapprovingly. ‘He suggested it to me.’

‘The last thing you need is people suggesting books for you to read.’ He crammed as much of the bread and cheese into his mouth as he could before talking around it. ‘What’s it about, anyway?’

‘Well, Tinsley said it was awfully elitist because-’

‘I don’t care what Tinsley has to say about it,’ said Ricky flatly. ‘I asked _you.’_

‘It’s about achieving personal excellence. Knowing your gifts. Only then can one be justifiably proud of oneself.’

‘God, stop talking. I’m going to fall asleep in my food.’

‘Make some up for me, would you?’

‘Make it up yourself.’ He pushed the chopping board and knife across the table to her. ‘Where’s Dani? Is she out riding again?’

‘Must be.’

‘She’s never home anymore,’ he muttered. ‘It’s not fair.’

Footsteps approaching, two sets. A maid swept in with a tray of empty delf, and Tinsley behind her, shrugging off his suit jacket. He looked at the two of them and then at the mess on the table. Breadcrumbs, smeared cheese, a grape or two having rolls off onto the floor. Marzia had the decency to appear somewhat ashamed. Ricky looked him over before going back to his meal without care. Tinsley folded his jacket over his arm.

‘You could have eaten when your mother and father were eating,’ he said. ‘And avoided having to make your own and leaving such a… mark.’

‘I didn’t want what was being served,’ replied Ricky, simply, as if that was the end of that.

‘Then you could have asked for something else.’

The maid filled a kettle and set it to boil. ‘Sir, ma’am, would either of you like a cup of tea?’

Marzia nodded. Ricky ignored the question.

‘Sometimes I think you forget your position in this house, Tinsley,’ he said. ‘You’re staff. Nothing more. So I don’t know where you get the impertinence to try and tell _me,_ the future lord of this manor, what to do.’

Tinsley gave him a cold look, a cold, aloof, detestable look, before replying with equal frostiness as to suit that upon his face, ‘My apologies, sir.’

Ricky looked at the maid where she was laying out three china teacups and their matching saucers. ‘You can go. Mr Tinsley here can make us our tea, as a quick reminder of his position within the house.’

‘Ricky,’ whispered Marzia, warningly.

Tinsley seemed both irritated and amused at the order. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled his sleeves to his elbows, giving the maid a nod of dismissal. She curtsied once to Ricky and again to Marzia before leaving to get on with another endless household role, perhaps dusting the mantelpieces or polishing the newels.

‘A daunting challenge, sir,’ said Tinsley. ‘Three cups of tea. I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle the pressure.’

‘I take mine with milk and half a spoon of sugar,’ said Ricky, his head high as he spread more brie onto his bread. ‘Exactly half a spoon.’

‘And what about you, ma’am?’ asked Tinsley.

Marzia took a moment to respond, too caught up in her thoughts, _tea, hostili-tea, animosi-tea, enmi-tea_. ‘Just milk, please.’

So Tinsley went to work, the relaxing and familiar steps of making a cup of tea. ‘You spoke of my “position” within the house, sir. Could you elaborate on your understanding of my “position”?’

Ricky stopped chewing, his dark eyebrows drawing together in a frown of concentration. What did Tinsley do, apart from pace around with Lord Goldsworth's diary under his arm, and watch and observe and disapprove from afar? ‘...Private secretary.’

‘Yes, but what do I do?’ Tinsley poured the hot water into the teacups, filling them each equally, watching the tea melt from the bags and into the water in curious tendrils. He left them to steep, turning to face the table, arms folded across his chest as he leaned back against the counter. ‘Or do you actually know? I’ll go ahead and assume that you don’t. What I do is maintain this family and its reputation. I am the first point of contact between you and the outside world. I handle all correspondence, all communications, phone calls, letters, telegrams, all comings and goings. I organize your schedules, your social appearances, your public speakings, which none of you seem very interested in carrying out, but nonetheless I do it. A futile, fruitless task, not to mention thankless. Now, sir, what do you do all day?’ He raised a hand, delicately but firmly. ‘Actually hold on, I can answer that question for you. You do nothing all day. At least your older sister rides and your younger sister expands her mind through literature. You, on the other hand? All you do is occasionally get blind drunk with your friends of questionable morals and come home to spew obscenities at the nearest human-looking figure you lay your bleary eyes on.’

‘Shut up.’ Ricky finally reacted to this barrage of unfortunate accuracies. He rose to his feet so suddenly his chair skidded backwards. ‘Shut your bloody mouth before I- before I shut it for you!’

Tinsley gave him a withering look, but when Ricky came towards him he stepped back, unfolding his arms. Ricky didn’t strike him. Instead he swept all three cups of tea, the sugar bowl, and the milk jug off the counter and onto the floor, shattering each cup and saucer, splattering the steaming tea all over the tiles, the milk spreading in a white wave to melt into the sugar. Tinsley stared at him in shock, and Ricky glared back, his shoulders rising and falling with his heavy breaths, his fists clenched by his sides. 

‘Clean that up,’ hissed Ricky before whipping away and striding out of the room without so much as a backwards glance.

Marzia couldn't stand the ensuing silence. Silences were demons in her life. She could feel them crawl into her throat whenever they slipped into the air of a room. She crossed to the radio and switched it on to the channel that had already been tuned in, and Sammy Davis Jr. chased away the demons for her.

Tinsley laughed, an awkward sound, trying to feign nonchalance in the face of his own surprise. ‘Not a big fan of me, is he?’

‘I don’t know why he would be,’ said Marzia, sitting back down at the table.

Tinsley got onto one knee, picking up the larger shards of china and ceramic from amid the sugary milky mess. ‘And why would you say that?’

‘You’re awfully sharp with him.’

‘Mm. Your brother needs someone to be sharp with him. Although it appears it might take a while for him to get used to it.’

She tapped her nails against the cover of her book. ‘He can be nice.’

‘When it suits him,’ replied Tinsley. ‘When it benefits him.’

‘No. Sometimes he can just be nice.’

Tinsley straightened up and carried the shards to the bin, careful not to cut himself in the process. ‘Your brother will be the lord of this manor one day. He needs to learn patience. He needs to learn that he won’t always get what he wants. And he needs to learn that that’s sometimes a good thing. Often, it’s a good thing. Especially judging by the things he currently wants. The wine, the men and women, the late nights, the way he treats himself... It’s all some sort of elaborate and gentle self-harm. If he keeps it up he will, inevitably, run himself into the ground, and you and your sister with him.’

Marzia rested her chin in her hand, watching him sweep up the sharp, tiny pieces of dry ceramic into a dustpan. ‘Why do you care, in the long run? When my father dies, that will be the end of your time here, seeing as Ricky won’t hesitate to send you away as soon as he can.’

‘Believe it or not, ma’am, but I may or may not have developed a fondness for a member or two of your family,’ he said wryly. ‘And it’s not your mother or father or brother. So when I do leave - and you’re right, I will eventually leave - I’d like to be comfortable in the knowledge I’ve left you in capable hands.’ He crossed back to the bin, shaking the dustpan into it. Then he rinsed a cloth in hot water, wrung it out into the sink before moving back towards the mess on the floor. ‘How are you finding that book, by the way?’

She smiled. ‘Enlightening.’

‘I’d hope so,' he said, before muttering, 'Maybe you could try and get your brother to pick it up.’

* * *

There was a knock on the door, soft, not wanting to be heard.

‘Come in,’ said Tinsley, his head bent over the diary. The weekend’s itinerary was proving an issue; Lady Goldsworth was bringing Daniela and Marzia for lunch, which left Lord Goldsworth and Ricky alone in the house. At least Lord Goldsworth was meeting his mother for dinner. Should their dinner be moved to an earlier time, to get him out of the house sooner? And on Sunday, there was that charity dinner at the Reverend’s house. Hopefully Daniela would be more easily directed than the rest of her family.

The door creaked open. ‘You wanted to see me, sir?’

Tinsley looked up at the footman standing halfway into the room. ‘Ah, yes. I did.’ He gestured at the chair across from him. ‘Do sit, Tommy.’ He patiently waited for the footman to sit. ‘Show me your glove for a moment. No, take it off. Thank you.’

He turned the glove inside-out, and there it was; the small black X. He turned it to show Tommy, who looked very confused.

‘Sorry, sir. I don’t know how that got there-’

‘I do, Tommy. I know how it got there. What I don’t know is how this particular glove-’ He gave it a shake. ‘-ended up hanging over the banister this morning. Care to explain?’

Tommy paled a considerable amount before flushing red. ‘What?’

‘Don’t make me waste my time in spelling it out for you, Tommy. Just tell me who it was for. You can either tell me now or I’ll find out myself.’

Tommy swallowed, lowering his gaze to the glove. ‘It was for Ricky, sir.’

‘You mean Lord Goldsworth. Not “Ricky”. And yes, I thought as much.’ He dropped the glove on the desk between them, allowing Tommy to reach over and get it back. ‘Listen, Tommy. I usually couldn’t give less of a toss about what occurs within the confines of another’s bedchamber. Unfortunately, in this instance, it is very much my business and I have no option but to give a toss.’ He sighed heavily, resting his forehead in his hand and lifting the phone off the hook. Then he glanced up at Tommy from under his brows. ‘Leave the room a minute, will you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Tommy stood up and headed for the door, feeling jittery in a most unpleasant way. He could hear Tinsley spinning in a number behind him. The sound went quiet the second the heavy wooden door was closed between them.

The halls were empty, lit only by the lamps on the hall tables. He could hear the rain pattering against the great big windows in the library across from him.

Then, a voice, soft, lonesome.

 _‘He wanted all to be in an ecstasy of peace,’_ recited Marzia, the heavy book balanced in one hand as she turned in slow circles through the room, her slippered feet upon the carpeted floor, her quilted dressing robe spinning like a ballgown. _‘I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk. I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine.’_

‘Tommy?’

He turned away from the library door. Tinsley was leaving out of his office, the light starkly golden against one side of his face. He had sharp features; sharp eyebrows, darker than the hair on his head, a long sharp nose, a sharp chin.

‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ said Tinsley before vanishing back into his office.

Tommy followed. He closed the door behind him. He sat down at the desk. Tinsley stood beside the drinks trolley, his back to the room. He was a tall man, an easy six-foot-five, slim as a whip, with the capability to be as stinging as one too.

‘Do you drink, Tommy?’

‘Not really, sir.’

‘Hm. Very well.’

Tinsley turned back to face the room. The lamplight gleamed against the grey hairs at his temples, the coldness of his green eyes. The whiskey tumblr looked awfully small in his hand. All it contained was water and a few pieces of ice. Condensation had gathered on the outside of the glass.

‘Now, Tommy. I understand that Lord Goldsworth is a fine-looking gentleman, regardless of his personality and the numerous flaws that may or may not come with it. A pretty face can be a bit like the sun, can’t it? You spend too long looking at it and you’re blind to everything else you see for the time that follows. But you’re still a young man, Tommy. You have all the time in the world to make mistakes. There’s no need to rush into it.’ He took a mouthful of his water, swilled it around his mouth while he considered his next words. ‘You’re a hard worker. You’re diligent. Punctual. You could go far. If you stay focused, I have no doubt you could find yourself valet to some great lord some day.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘But,’ said Tinsley distractedly, tapping his index finger against his glass. ‘But, but, but. It will not be here. And it will not be to Lord Goldsworth.’

‘...Sir?’

‘I’ve made suitable arrangements that I’m sure you’ll be perfectly happy with.’ A pause, a small, meaningless smile. ‘I wish you luck in your future endeavours.’

A single blink. ‘I'm- I'm a bit confused, sir?’

Tinsley delivered the blow quietly but firmly. ‘Your bags are packed and at the back door.’

‘...You’re firing me?’

‘I’m relocating you.’

The footman sighed, tapping his hands against his knees for a few minutes as he processed the news. ‘I suppose I knew this day would come. I’ll say my goodbyes and-’

‘Your bags are at the back door. The car is waiting. There is no time for goodbyes.’ He pushed a sheet of paper across the desk to the footman, taking the lid off a pen before placing this pen down on top of it. ‘What there is time for is the signing of this non-disclosure agreement, which confirms that you will not discuss your past illicit relationship with any person or persons within this household.’

Tommy looked at him, and despite the fact they had hardly ever spoken to each other, there was betrayal in his eyes.

 _Naïve_ _,_ thought Tinsley. _Hopelessly naïve._

‘So what they say about you is true, hm?' said Tommy, rubbing at his nose. 'Heartless.’

‘I do what has to be done.’

‘But- But I like Ricky. And he likes me. I don’t see what the issue is, if we keep it quiet-’

‘The issue is that your relationship with your employer is entirely inappropriate,’ said Tinsley with more edge to his tone. ‘It cannot be sustained. The stability of this household is already hanging by a thread. So let me reiterate; this is not a discussion nor a debate. This is an order from your superior to sign this document and leave, promptly, without another word to anyone.’

Tommy swallowed, looking down at the sheet of paper. He picked up the pen and signed his name, waveringly.

‘You’re not to leave anything behind,’ said Tinsley, kindly blotting the wet ink for him. ‘Not a note, not a handkerchief, not a glove. Not a single thing.’ He pushed his chair back, rising to his feet. ‘I’ll escort you out.’

‘I don’t need to be escorted.’

‘I insist.’

'I don't need to be frogmarched out of the building.'

'I said, I insist.'

He walked him to the servant's door, where his bags - few as they were - were being packed into the boot of the car.

'Now remember,' said Tinsley, pityingly, but only just, 'I handle all correspondence to and from the household. Your relationship with Lord Goldsworth ends here.'

* * *

The fluttering of a dressing robe, crimson silk, the fast sound of slippered feet against the stairs. A butler stepped out of the way with Mr Goldsworth's nightcap on a tray.

The banister rattled as Ricky swung around the end of it, firing himself off into the hall that led to the library, and past that, to Tinsley's office. He resisted the urge to stop outside and gather himself, fix his wild hair, do up the collar of his pajama shirt. And he hadn't shaved that morning, he could feel stubble on his face. But he didn't care what Tinsley thought of him.

‘Where is Tommy?’ he demanded, barging into the office. 'Where is he? You have no authority to do what you did.'

Tinsley, unruffled, left his pen down and linked his hands on the desk. His face was as unbearably aloof as it always was. ‘His time here was done.’

Ricky came over to the desk, eyes narrowed. ‘What did you find out.’

‘Something that doesn’t need to be discussed any further.’

‘You’re a cold-blooded bastard, do you know that.’

Tinsley remained cool. ‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’

‘No you’re not. You’re not sorry at all. You don’t have the emotional capacity to feel sorry. It's exactly as I said; you're not human, you're a heartless, bloodless machine. If I tore you open there'd be nothing but wires inside.’

Tinsley let his head hang forwards, and he rubbed at the back of his neck, as if it ached. Then he stood up and came around the desk to face Ricky. ‘Will I tell you what would have happened if Tommy had remained in this household?’

‘Go ahead. Enlighten me.’

‘You would have had your fun and games for a little while. Then you would have met someone serious. Someone of your own social standing. You would have grown fond of them - a genuine fondness, not the schoolboy insincerity of a fleeting crush. Do you understand the difference? Have you ever felt a genuine fondness for anyone else apart from your reflection?’

Ricky drew back a little at this, his eyes large. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Tommy would have ended up on the back-burner,’ continued Tinsley. ‘And he wouldn’t have been happy about it. Jealousy would have caught flame in this house that is already a pile of kindling waiting for a spark. And there would have been no one else to blame but you and your favourite companions; greed and lust. So yes, sir. Tommy had to leave. There was no other option. And unfortunately, you cannot be trusted to act rationally or wisely in any given situation.’

‘Greed and lust,’ repeated Ricky dryly. ‘Well I have some mortal sins for you too, Tinsley; pride and apathy. So I guess I’ll be seeing you in hell. If we’re not already in it.’

Tinsley stayed where he was as the young lord strode from the room with his shoulders stiff and head high. He was like his mother in that way; insisting in coming off the better, the prouder, the more put-together.

* * *

Lucy was waiting for him in the greenhouse sitting on one of the wicker chairs, dressed in her nightclothes. It was cooler than before. There hadn’t been a single ray of sun in the sky since dawn, and dusk had long fallen.

‘Coffee?’ she offered, gesturing at the table. ‘Tea? Or something stronger?’

He checked his watch as he sat; ten o’clock. ‘Something stronger, if you have it, ma’am. Seeing the time.’

‘Whiskey? Brandy? Scotch?’

‘Whatever you’re having, ma’am. I’m not fussy.’

Tinsley sat while she rifled through the drinks trolley. He was a little on edge. A summons so late in the day from Lady Goldsworth was not a common event. In fact, it was entirely uncommon. This was the very first time.

Once she’d poured their scotches and added ice and soda to hers, she sat back down and crossed her legs. ‘What you did today was the right thing to do.’

Tinsley wasn’t too surprised that she had found out about Tommy’s relocation, but he wasn’t going to start celebrating or gloating. It had simply been something that needed to be done, a weed that needed to be cut before it grew into something uncontrollable and choking. So he just smiled a little and took a mouthful of his drink so that he didn't have to reply.

‘You’re probably not used to such a sentence,’ she continued. ‘You’re probably more used to anger and bitterness. Cries of unfairness. But I know you only did what was necessary.’ She brought her own drink to her mouth; the ice clinked, light and delicate. ‘You’ve been in love before, haven’t you, Tinsley?’

He blinked at this, caught off-guard by the sudden change in topic. ‘Sorry, ma’am?’

‘You’ve been in love. The real thing. And I say that because love - real, true love - makes you cruel. Because we know what we would have wanted said to us by those who were watching, by those who saw the end before we did. By those who supposedly cared for us.’

Tinsley looked down into his glass, gave the contents a quick swirl. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t say I’ve ever been in love.’

‘No?’

‘No.’ He accepted a cigarette from the French enamel tin offered to him, nodding his thanks. ‘I’ve only seen others in love. I’ve seen the havoc it can wreak. None of it was ever appealing to me.’

‘Well, you must have broken many hearts.’

‘Not on purpose.’

She laughed. ‘A passive breaking of the heart is more hurtful than a purposeful one. I can tell you that.’ She let him light her cigarette, the metal lighter snapping shut. ‘But Ricky needed what you did today. He needed to be knocked down a peg or two.’

‘I didn’t do it to hurt him, ma’am. I did it for stability.’

‘Then hurting him was just an added bonus, hm?’ She laughed again, an airy one. ‘That Tommy was an innocent fool. Ricky ran rings around him all day. He’ll do better wherever you’ve sent him.’

‘To London, ma’am. To join the staff of a house I have some friends in.’

‘Yes,’ she murmured, not listening at all. ‘Yes, Ricky is a lot more like his father than he’d care to admit. Than either of them would care to admit. Do you think personality flaws can be hereditary? Like eye colour and skin conditions? Ricky has his father’s ego, his narcissism, his temper. It’s uncanny at times. Daniela has his stoicness. But Marzia… I have no idea where Marzia came from, to be honest with you. She’s not like either of us. She’s like a little ghost in this house.’ She suddenly looked at him again and smiled. 'But don't lie, hurting Ricky felt good, didn't it?'

'Good?'

'He's a little brat. There's no satisfaction like the satisfaction you feel when you succeed in hurting him. He always seems so surprised that you've succeeded. Every time, he's surprised.'

'I didn't do it to hurt him.'

She looked him in the eye and inclined her head a tad. 'Yes you did.'

Tinsley broke eye contact first, taking a long, long drag on his cigarette before exhaling through his nose. Perhaps he had felt an inkling of satisfaction, but it wasn't something he was proud of, and it wasn't something he would ever admit to having felt, either.

'You shouldn't feel ashamed,' she said. 'Or guilty. Because he'll do it back without a second's hesitation. He doesn't have anything else to do but plot his revenge for the most petty reasons. All he does is drink and whore himself around. He inherited his father's habits in that regard.' She laughed, draining the end of her glass. Tinsley hadn't even made a dent in his. 'I'm going to go to bed. Lock up after you're done here, will you?'

Tinsley didn't move as she placed her glass aside and stubbed out her cigarette and left. He finished his drink and another few cigarettes in the company of the reflection that sat across from him in the glass of the greenhouse walls.


	5. Let The Finches Drink Their Fill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: considerable discussion of suicide in the second section, starting after _'You shouldn't sit there, sir. It's a longer drop than it looks.'_ and finishing at the end of the section.

The restaurant faced onto a busy public park. The tablecloths were pure white, the glasses and cutlery never with a speck or smudge upon them. Flower arrangements were placed throughout the room, wonderfully wintry; white lilies, white baby's-breath, white sneezewort, little silver-painted pine cones, all tied together with silver-white satin bows. Large windows let natural light pour into the room so plentifully it was almost unnecessary for the lights to be on, but without the lights on the crystal chandeliers wouldn’t sparkle, and the type of people who came here were the type of people who liked their chandeliers to sparkle.

Lucy had always liked this restaurant. She liked the foods it served, the coffee during the day, the wine at night. She often wondered if her fondness of the place had been the sole cause behind her husband’s subsequent groping of almost every waitress in the staff. He had done it to humiliate her, of course, because for whatever reason, the humiliation would never be on him. But the only aspect of humiliation that truly was on Lucy was how long she had taken to understand she was not the one at fault, and how long it took her to stop caring.

Today, she had ordered a Caesar salad without the bacon.

‘You have to watch your weight,’ she said to her daughters, ‘especially as you get older.’

‘Why is it called a Caesar salad?’ asked Daniela. ‘Is it because you stab it repeatedly?’ She mimicked jabbing her fork down into Lucy’s bowl, again and again, ignoring the irritation on her mother’s face. ‘Like so?’

‘Nothing to do with _that_ Caesar,’ said Marzia, a spoonful of tomato and basil soup halfway to her mouth. ‘A different one. A chef.’

‘Oh. That’s boring.’

‘You always want violence,’ said Lucy with a shake of her head. ‘Your father should never have given you that rifle. It’s done far more harm than good. You’re out all day every day, from morning ‘til night’ She patted her mouth with a napkin before picking up her bag and standing up. ‘Excuse me a moment, I have to run to the lady’s room.’

Marzia swapped her soup bowl for a small plate, picking a pale yellow macaroon from the little pile in the centre of the table. 'Where _have_ you been going all this time, Dani? Surely hunting doesn't last all day.’

Daniela took a deep breath, pushing her pasta around in its bowl. She had suddenly lost her appetite. It was inevitable, of course, that someone would one day ask this question, but she had always hoped it wouldn't be Marzia, because she could never bring herself to lie to her sister. ‘You have to promise not to tell anyone.'

Marzia perked up. 'Oh. A secret?'

'Yes. A big, big secret.'

'I promise I won't tell anyone.' She reached a hand across the table, pinky finger extended. 'Pinky promise.'

Daniela smiled before linking her pinky through Marzia's. 'Pinky promise.' Then she sat forwards, tucking her hair behind her ears. '...I’m building a house. I’ve done it all, from the start to the end. Planning permission, architectural drawings, engineers, all of it. It’s almost done. And it will be all mine. Nothing of this bloody family but me. And you, of course, when it suits.’

'What? A house?' A few seconds of rapid blinking. ‘How did you afford all of it?’

‘My allowance. And I’ve been pawning some of mum’s jewelry. She doesn’t know, I don't think. But I don’t care. I couldn’t go to dad. He would’ve said no. And then the slagging would’ve begun. I wouldn’t have been able to bear it.’

Marzia was stunned, her eyes staring through her sister and into the land beyond. ‘So... So you’re leaving.’

‘Well, I’ll be relatively nearby.’

‘But you’re leaving the house. You’re leaving me and Ricky.’

Daniela looked away. ‘I couldn’t stay there forever, Marzia.’

‘Why didn't you tell me before now? Were you just going to leave?’

‘Because- Because I wanted to be sure it was only me who knew. I couldn’t have mum or dad find out.’

‘Did you tell Ricky?’

‘No. He doesn’t know either. I’m going to tell him when I see him next. If he’s sober, that is.’

Marzia stared at her plate, at the perfectly circular, perfectly smooth little macaroon. ‘It’s going to be worse without you.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No you’re not. You’re not sorry. Why would you be? You’re ecstatic. I’m just mad I didn’t think of mum's jewelry before you did.’ She used the side of her spoon to slowly chop the crushed macaroon into smaller pieces. ‘What’s it like? The house?’

‘It’s small. More of a cottage than anything else. A big difference from the manor. But I don’t want the manor. I never did. Ricky can have it. He’s the only son, anyway.’

‘He doesn’t want it either. None of us want it. By now it’s a game of whoever’s left behind, loses.’ She placed her spoon aside. ‘It’s going to be me. I know it is.’

‘Marzia…’

‘It is,’ she whispered. ‘What options do I have? I don’t want a husband. I don’t want to be a wife. I don’t want a family. It will be just me alone in that bloody horrible place. Me and the ghosts.’

'Ghosts?'

'Yes. Humans aren't the only things that leave their spirits behind. There's emotions, events, things said and things unsaid... Unforgivings... They haunt those rooms. And I don't think anyone else feels them but me.'

Daniela watched her going back to stabbing the macaroon’s remains. ‘You could sell it. Lease the land. Live off the rent. There’s some good hunting pasture at the far back, near the woods. Some club would pay good money for that.’

‘Money isn’t the issue.’ Marzia chewed on her lip, keeping her head ducked. ‘I’m worried for the future. For my future. I’m going to be a lonely old spinster and it will be my own fault because it’s my own decision. But I can’t help it. I can’t help that I don’t... want what others want.’

Daniela reached out and took hold of her hand, tightly. ‘I won’t be so far away. I promise. But you need to promise me something in return. You need to promise not to tell mum or dad where my house is. Don’t tell Ricky either. And don’t tell Tinsley.’ She released Marzia’s hand and went back to her coffee. ‘Tinsley’s going to be trouble. He’s going to come after me. For stability. And reputation. Or whatever he always says.’

‘You don’t like him?’

‘No, no, it’s not that. I’m just… I’m suspicious of him. And you should be too. I know he can seem very friendly and kind but remember how he dealt with the Tommy and Ricky situation? It was so sudden. No warning at all. Cutthroat.’ She reached for the coffee pot, topped up her cup. ‘It seemed strange to me. It was like he was giving Ricky a tap on the wrist for misbehaving.’

Marzia’s gaze flickered over her shoulder. ‘Mum’s coming.’

So they switched the topic of conversation to that of something more harmless, more unimportant. Lucy sat back down in her seat and placed her purse on the floor.

‘It’s so nice for all three of us to be together for once,’ she said. ‘We hardly ever see you anymore, Daniela.’

‘We never see each other anyway,’ she muttered. ‘Regardless of whether I’m around or not.’

‘God, Daniela. You don’t always have to be so mopey.’

‘I’m not being mopey, mum. Teenagers are mopey. I’m thirty-three. I’m tired. And I don’t want to go to this stupid charity dinner tomorrow.’

‘You have to accept some responsibility in your life.’

Daniela glowered into the dregs of her coffee. ‘Ricky should go. Not me. I’m tired of taking on his responsibilities just because he’s too immature to handle them himself.’

‘Blame your father for that. He never taught him anything.’

‘Well dad never taught me or Marzia anything either, but we act our ages. It’s Ricky’s fault, and his fault alone.’

Lucy was hardly listening, her eyes scanning Daniela’s clothes, her black brocade smoking jacket and white shirt with the tie loose. ‘I thought I asked you to dress nicely. A smoking jacket is entirely inappropriate for midday lunch.’

‘I don’t like frocks. I look silly in them.’ She sighed harshly, sitting back in her seat. ‘And the time when you could tell me how to dress is long gone, mum. I know you still try painfully hard with Marzia, but that time will pass too. Soon. Then you’ll just have to invest in a little doll and dress her up and comb her hair instead.’

'You'll understand one day,' said Lucy. 'When you're old and grey like I am.'

'You're not old and grey, mum,' muttered Marzia.

'Oh, I am. Getting old is so awful.' She sighed wearily. 'Some aspects of it you hardly notice, they happen so slowly. But some aspects are sudden. One evening you walk into a room and no one turns their heads to look at you. And you realize you're old.' She reached out, gave Marzia's cheek a pinch. 'I used to turn heads, just like you do now.'

'Mum, you're going to instill a permanent fear of aging in us,' said Daniela firmly. 'It's not fair. You need to stop talking to us like this.'

Marzia knew her sister was right. Even at twenty-five years of age, she was already paranoid about wrinkles she knew would come some day. Every morning and night she applied her creams and serums all over her face and neck, even the backs of her hands, as that's where Lucy said aging could be most obvious. She made sure not to leave out the skin of her face just in front of her ears, as that was where she had first noticed wrinkles on her mother. She would trace her fingertips along her smooth under-eyes, aware that one days they would wrinkle and sag. This hideous monstrosity her mother called 'age' lurked in every mirror, every reflective surface, just waiting for her to look.

'You can't take everything mum says to heart,' said Daniela to her one summer evening, sitting by the lake, making daisy chains. 'Remember the can incident?'

Marzia did remember the can incident. Lucy had been trying to open a tin, and sliced her hand on the razor edge of the lid, right between her thumb and index finger, right where an artery lay. Yet she wouldn't go to the hospital, insisting she was fine, she didn't need to. She sat at the table, a bloody towel wrapped around her hand. There were droplets of blood on the tiles, shiny and solid-looking, like little jewels, little beads. Their cat at the time licked them up, paws tucked in under its chest and tail swishing.

Marzia also remembered how Lucy wept. It was a heavier weeping than such a cut required. She imagined that it was a build-up of many others things. Perhaps her mother had held so tightly onto the idea of being strong that, upon seeing blood, upon seeing how it came from her body, from her fragile paper skin, she realized she was only human and could be hurt so easily and with so little effort, by no one's hand but her own.

Yet it wasn't fear or panic that Marzia had felt. It had been confusion in the face of this undeniable display of irrationality. It had been the first evidence of her mother's instability that she couldn't deny, couldn't explain away.

Her father had come to the doorway just to say, 'If she won't go to the hospital, what am I supposed to do? I'm not a doctor.' Then he left. He hated the sight of blood. Sometimes it made him faint.

Daniela and Lucy were still talking, barbed-wire words, and Marzia was struggling to return to the moment, to crawl free from her memories. She placed a hand on the table, wrinkled the cloth between her fingers.

'I wish I'd been born a man,' Daniela was saying, bitter with regret over a choice that hadn't been hers to make. 'Then I wouldn't have to listen to all this.'

'We all wish we were born men,' replied Lucy, patronizing. 'Men know who their enemies are. They know it's the politician who opposes them in parliament, or the neighbour who's trying to outdo their garden. Women's enemies are not so easy to recognize. They can come from anywhere, on a dark night, on a bright morning, wearing a face we know or don't know. Often they're the ones we know. Often they're the very ones who tell us they love us.'

'Did you know,' began Marzia. 'Did you know there's a type of bird called a vampire finch, and it pecks at the feathers of bigger birds until they bleed, and then it drinks their blood? But the bigger birds don't seem to care. It's as if they don't even feel it. They just let the finches drink their fill. Apparently the finches used to peck parasites from the bigger bird's feathers, so some ornithologists think that the bigger birds still believe the finches are helping them, when they're not, they're harming them. Isn't that interesting?'

Daniela pondered it. 'Morbid, but yes, interesting. Although I suppose morbidity and interest tend to go hand in hand.'

'I have two boys for daughters,' muttered Lucy, finally giving in and taking a macaroon for herself. 'Two little boys.'

* * *

Late afternoon. Ricky and Mr Goldsworth had so far managed to stay out of each other's way, and there was a rare moment of peace in the house. The sunlight probed the empty spaces more curiously, filtered through the dust in the air, illuminated the steam from coffee, tea, and fresh-baked bread.

The kitchen was empty. Tinsley left his dirty cup beside the sink before taking a crisp red apple from the fruit bowl and rinsing it under the tap. The water droplets ran down the smooth skin, and he caught them in his mouth as he bit into it. Soft, sweet. He liked red apples. Their green counterparts were much too sharp and sour for his liking.

A heavily annotated baking book sat in a carved wooden bookstand. He paused to read it, flicking through the pages. Pies, biscuits, breads, pastries. He used to enjoy baking, until he found his job was growing more and more demanding and his free time less and less free.

A recipe for a dozen fruit scones caught his eye. He chewed his apple pensively, reading the list of ingredients, skimming the instructions. Straightforward enough. He checked his watch. Perhaps, for once, he had some time on his hands.

Time didn’t seem to matter to anyone in this family. Only earlier he had spotted the grandfather clock in the hall outside Mr Goldsworth’s room and noticed the hands didn’t match the hands on his watch, so he made a note to call someone to fix it. Yet only further down the hall was a wall-mounted clock, also with an incorrect time. Tinsley adjusted that one himself. Then, sensing a pattern, and also sensing his legs were stiff from sitting all morning and needed a stretch, he took off around the halls and rooms to correct all the clocks he could and note down those he couldn’t. Some were old, older than him, than his father, than his father’s father. Those ones weren’t even ticking at all anymore.

In the library, flat on its front with its spine cracking, was a book Marzia must have been perusing. Tinsley picked up a single brown leaf from the floor that someone must have walked in, using it to mark the pages before closing it over. _À la recherche du temps perdu._ In search of lost time. 

‘Me too, Marcel,’ muttered Tinsley. ‘Turns out this family has been hoarding all of it. Not a single working clock around here. They just operate off night and day. If even.’ He placed the book back down. ‘Although time, of course, is conceptual. And manmade. Perhaps this family is actually in the right, for once, ignoring its existence altogether.’

But time, he supposed, wasn’t entirely manmade. It existed in nature in its more abstract fashion. Watching from the second floor window of the manor, one would be able to track the passing hours by observing the animals as they followed their schedules. Diurnal, nocturnal, crepuscular. Not only animals, but plants too. Evening primrose, signifying the end of the day drawing near. Moonflowers. Time was interesting once. Humanity just made it boring.

Tinsley took off his watch and placed it on the windowsill out of harm’s way. He took off his suit jacket, waistcoat, and navy tie, hanging them on the back of a chair, before rolling up his shirtsleeves and tucking them into place around his elbows. Cook’s striped blue apron hung off the handle of a cabinet. He fetched it, wrapping it twice around his narrow waist before knotting it at the front. He had always been tall, a large presence in any room, but his frame was slender compared to most other men his height, more gracile and willowy.

There was a clean bowl beside the sink, having been used for the bread. Cook kept her kitchen neat and functional, and he found the rest of what he needed with relative ease.

First, whisking the dry ingredients in a bowl; flour, baking powder, sugar, salt. He added in the chilled butter, made small crumbs out of the mixture. Then he set it aside in the refrigerator before moving onto the wet ingredients; cream, egg, vanilla essence. Then everything together. Some dried cranberries went in too. He poured the mixture onto the floured countertop, the same one Ricky had swept all the delf off only a few days before. But even battlefields became meadows over time.

When the scones had been in the oven long enough for their scent to have escaped the room and infiltrated the halls, he heard footsteps hurrying along the corridor, almost skipping in their excitement.

‘I smell tea!’ sang Ricky, before coming to a sudden halt in the doorway, hanging off the frame. His dark green jumper sleeves were around his elbows, and the cuffs of a white shirt poked out from underneath. ‘Oh. It’s you.’

Tinsley turned his back to him and ran the tap to watch his hands. ‘Yes. It’s me.’

A silence as Ricky regarded this unfamiliar territory. ‘Why are you baking?’

‘Because I like it.’

Ricky pulled a face, leaning against the door frame, his head resting on it. He had a softly angelic face, not as sharp as Daniela’s, not as impish as Marzia’s. Something an artist would paint among the clouds. ‘Are you any good?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. I’m hungry.’ He finally let himself teeter forwards until his fingertips slipped from the door frame and he stepped into the room. He traced a hand along the back of a chair. He liked to touch things, to feel them. ‘What are you making.’

‘Scones.’ Tinsley dried his hands on the towel, resting back against the counter to face Ricky. ‘Are you a fan?’

‘I’m prone to the occasional scone.’

‘You’re in a good mood today,' commented Tinsley. 'A relief for the whole world.’

Ricky was at the chair Tinsley had draped his jacket, waistcoat, and tie over. He took the waistcoat’s hem between thumb and forefinger, rubbing it. ‘I wouldn’t have expected you to be into baking.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it seems too natural. Too in touch with the softer, more delicate side of life. A side I didn’t think you’d indulge in.’

‘I see.’

Ricky smiled at him. ‘Do you remember how I take my tea?’

Tinsley’s response was dry. ‘How could I forget.’

‘Bring a cup to my room, and one of those scones when they’re done. Jam and cream too.’ He paused in the doorway. ‘And bring something nice for yourself. We’re going to have a chat.’

Tinsley watched him go. Then he exhaled through his nose, a half-hearted laugh of disbelief. ‘Right away, sir.’

When the scones were done, he allowed them to cool while he fetched a tray and made up a pot of tea, filled a small jug with milk, retrieved the new sugar bowl from the cabinet.

‘Oh, is someone looking for something?’ asked a maid, wrapped up in a coat and scarf after being in the garden. A basket of laundry sat on her hip, her gloved hands gripping it tightly. ‘I could bring it to them, if you-’

‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

He buttoned his shirt collar again and put his tie back on before plating up a few scones and adding them to the tray. A lovely little set-up. Deceitful.

Ricky was on his balcony, arms folded on the balustrade, a cigarette in his hand. Tinsley, still holding the loaded tray, carefully kicked the door shut behind him. The table was covered in clutter; books, old coffee cups, a hairbrush netted with black curls, a plate with crumbs going stale and a stiff orange skin. He cleared them all to one side before setting the tray down.

Ricky came in, cigarette still in his mouth. He took hold of the teapot before Tinsley could. ‘Allow me.’ He filled up the two cups, adding milk and sugar to his own. ‘How do you take yours, Tinsley?’

Tinsley eyed him, a little wary. ‘Just some milk. A splash.’

Ricky added just some milk, a splash. Then he stubbed his cigarette out in one of the old coffee cups. It sizzled against the dregs. ‘Sit for a moment.’

Tinsley sat, rubbing his hands down his thighs, resisting the urge to take a deep breath. Ricky sat on the chair beside him, at an angle, legs crossed, infinitely more at ease. Tinsley waited for him to take a scone before taking one for himself.

‘I wanted to talk to you, Tinsley. About this charity dinner hosted by the Reverend Kemble tomorrow.’ He sliced his scone in half, the crumbs moist and buttery. ‘My sister is going, apparently. I was just wondering why that is?’ He spread jam on one half of his scone, cream on the other. ‘I should go. I’m his son. I’m the rightful heir. I should be the face of the family. Not Dani.’

'Your father said he wants your sister to go.’

‘Why her? She’s boring. I’m much more fun.’

‘You’re much more risky,’ muttered Tinsley, slicing his scone in half.

‘Ridiculous. I know how to relax. I know how to make people like me. Dani doesn't.’

‘Your father said your sister,' repeated Tinsley, firm.

‘Well I’m saying me!’ shouted Ricky, rearing up out of his chair and jabbing a finger into his chest. ‘I’m the only one who ever says me!’

Tinsley looked at him. He was gradually getting used to Ricky's flaring temper, but it still sometimes managed to catch him by surprise, especially considering how serene Ricky could appear only seconds beforehand.

Just for the sake of it, Tinsley rubbed some salt into the wound. 'Why don't you talk to your father about it?'

Ricky's black eyes narrowed, his jaw jutting forwards a tad before he drew it back in. Then he collapsed back into his seat. 'Funny, aren't you.'

'Well there's not much I can do about the situation, sir.'

'Then I'll do something about it myself.'

'That's not your job.'

'You're always at me to do something with my time. Now you're telling me to stand aside and do nothing. Make up your mind, would you?'

Tinsley quartered one half of his scone, four little bite-sized wedges. 'You like being difficult, don't you.'

'Difficult? I'm not difficult. I just want people to listen to me. Respect me. They don't do it otherwise.'

'You can't blame them for that. The fault lies with you.'

'Oh shut up. I don't care what you have to say.'

'You invited me up here to talk.'

'Yes, because I wanted you to _listen,'_ hissed Ricky. 'Not defy me. God, you're useless.'

Ricky abandoned his scone, taking his cup of tea out to the balcony. Tinsley heard a match being struck, saw the smoke from a fresh cigarette drift back into the room. He finished his own scone before beginning to clear up. Through the window he saw Ricky sitting on the balustrade, legs swinging back and forth, the heels of his shoes striking against the stone repeatedly. He was looking down, at the long drop to the patio below, all the potted flowers. Tinsley left the tray and went to the door.

'You shouldn't sit there, sir. It's a longer drop than it looks.'

'I know how long it is. I know exactly how long.' He sat back. 'You said you smoke after lunch.'

Tinsley was still watching him carefully. One small slip would be all it would take. 'I like to have one, yes.'

'Tin's on the table. Help yourself.'

'I'd prefer if you'd come over and join me.'

The heels of Ricky's shoes tap-tap-tapped against the balustrade. 'Do you think he really hates me? Entirely?'

'What?'

'My father. He hates me. I know why he might now, because I hate him too, but why it began I can't say.' _Tap, tap, tap._ 'It's hard, you know. I'm too much like my mother for my father to like me, but I'm too much like my father for my mother to like me.' His legs stopped swinging, his shoes stopped tapping. 'Do you think they'd care if I died?'

Tinsley took hold of his arm. 'You should come back over now, sir.'

The frozen breeze cut through them, lifted Tinsley's tie from his chest, lifted Ricky's dark hair about his face. The smell of petrichor, of wet moss and damp tree bark, nature's enviable perfumes.

'It almost feels like we're underwater, doesn't it?' murmured Ricky, stretching his hand forwards into the air, waving it in a nonexistent current. 'Maybe if I stepped forwards I'd just float away...'

'Come, sir. Come inside.'

Ricky didn't budge. 'Leave me.'

'Sir-'

_'Leave.'_

'But-'

'I won't do what you think I might do,' muttered Ricky, taking a mouthful of his tea. 'Although I often think about it. The thought doesn't haunt me, so to say. I suppose I invite it into my head. _Mi casa es su casa.'_ He reached out, holding his china teacup by its delicate handle, before letting go. It shattered into pieces on the patio far below, loud, bone-jarring. 'Look at that. Easy. It's almost cruel, isn't it? How easy it could be.'

Tinsley looked down. The pieces of the cup looked more akin to dust from up there, or something softer, like icing sugar or snow. 'You're not made of china, sir.'

Ricky looked over his shoulder at him, a frown on his face. 'Meaning?'

'Meaning you wouldn't shatter into little pieces. Meaning you could fall and not even die. Worst case scenario, you might seriously injure yourself and end up unable to autonomously move a limb for the rest of your days.'

'Best case scenario, instant death.'

'Is it worth the risk?'

Ricky was still looking at him, still with that frown on his face, although less confused and more curious now. 'You must be the first person who doesn't dance around the topic.'

'Is that why you bring it up? In the hopes it will make the other person uncomfortable?'

'No. In the hopes that someone will care enough to acknowledge what I'm trying to say.'

Tinsley arched an eyebrow. 'Awfully selfish of you.'

'Selfish?'

'You don't know why the other person might not want to discuss the topic. Suicide could have affected their life in some way. Directly or indirectly. It's selfish to think that the only reason they don't want to discuss it is because they don't care about you.' Tinsley looked up at the clouds. 'Do you know what's out there?'

'...Space?'

'Yes, space. The planets and the stars and the moons. And do you know what they don't do?'

'What?'

'Revolve around you.'

Ricky stared at him for a long moment. Then he laughed, a sharp one, a wry one. He swung his legs over the balustrade and slipped back onto his feet. 'Yes, you're a funny man. Very funny. But it's not your job to be funny, is it?'

'No,' he replied. 'But it _is_ a surprisingly common requirement.'

'Get out,' said Ricky, dismissive, but lightly so. 'And find someone to clean up that cup I dropped.'

* * *

Lucy knocked on the office door. It was the only office upstairs, set beside her husband’s bedroom with a door that linked them together. This area of the house was strange to her, a foreign land, barren and hostile.

‘Come in,’ said Alejandro from inside.

She went in, leaving the door open. ‘I wanted to talk to you.’

He was standing at his desk, preoccupied with scouring bank statements for any irregularities. His usual fat cigar was in his mouth, tendrils of poisonous fumes. ‘Mm.’

‘Why are you sending Daniela to the Reverend’s dinner instead of Ricky?’

‘For the same reason I'm not sending you,’ he muttered, yet to look up from his papers. ‘Erratic. Unstable. Prone to saying things that shouldn’t be said, and saying them loudly.’

‘Not every word out of your mouth has to slander me, you know. It can get tiring and repetitive after a very short while.’

He placed one piece of paper aside and picked up another. ‘I’ve answered your question. You can go.’

‘I know you always enjoyed causing ructions between us at every opportunity but to start causing ructions between the children is low. Even for you.’

‘Your definition of ructions has always been funny.’ He finally gave her a glance from under his brows. ‘Me pointing out your flaws and you growing angry about having said flaws really has nothing to do with me. That’s you having a “ruction” with no one but yourself.’

‘Ricky is your son. Your only son. Your only legitimate son, anyway. I’m sure you have a few bastards running loose around town, but frankly I don’t care.’

‘You always do this. Come to me acting as if you have the good of the family at heart, when really you just want to air your own grievances. You’re a selfish woman, Lucía. Always have been.’

She hardly reacted to this. She had long grown used to his spiteful words. They still had the potential to cut through her, of course, but it was less like a hot knife through butter and more like a single pebble dropping into a deep lake, only to settle at the lakebed with all the rest and gradually be worn away to dust over time.

‘Ricky needs guidance,’ she said. ‘He needs to be put at the forefront of the children. And Daniela needs to wed. She’s already long past the right age. It will be difficult now to find her a suitor.’

‘She doesn’t want to wed, and in all honesty I can sympathize.’

‘Tinsley will find her a suitable man.’

‘Tinsley had some other news about our eldest that he shared with me only twenty minutes ago,’ said Alejandro, raising his brows. ‘Daniela intends to move.’

Lucy blinked. ‘Move?’

‘Move. Away. To some secret abode. So unfortunately he won’t have the time to find a suitable husband for her, as he’ll be too busy locating her elusive new home.’

Lucy reached up, lightly touching the stone of her necklace and the heart that lay beneath. ‘I don’t believe it. And she wasn’t going to tell anyone?’

‘Seems not.’

‘...I gave these children life and this is how they repay me,’ she whispered, ‘Betrayal. Abandonment. And it’s all the worse because I suffered for them. I hated being pregnant. I hated giving birth. Watching my body get mangled and torn by a squealing little demon. Did you know that giving birth actually alters the woman psychologically? I am not who I was before the children, and unlike most, I hate it. Maternal instincts are a natural reflex as poisonously instinctive as vomiting when one feels ill. I was someone whole. I was to be respected and feared. And what am I now? A mother. Tossed on the pile with all the rest.’

Alejandro took a deep breath and let it out quietly; for patience, for calm. ‘Do you want me to apologize, is that it.’

‘I want you to understand!’ she shouted. ‘I want you to even just _act_ as if you understand! Why should I have to grovel for your sympathy? What right have you to withhold it from me? I am more than your wife and the mother of your child. I am the sole creator of your legacy. I made your future. I pushed it out of me for hours while you sat at dinner and reaped the rewards. You would be nothing without me.’

‘And you’d be nothing without me,’ he responded coolly. ‘Who gave you all your diamonds and rings, hm?’

‘Do you ever see me wearing any of that tacky shit you get me?’ she hissed. ‘I hate jewelry, Alejandro. You just want to slap a diamante collar on me and walk me around on a leash. Well I won’t stand for it. And if I left, you know for certain all three of the children would come with me. What would you do then? You’d fall into nothing. Right back where you came from. And believe you me, I won’t come when you call.’

Alejandro brought his cigar to his mouth, took a few pensive puffs. ‘If you and them left me, I’d find another wife. Someone younger and prettier and with better tits. Then I’d have another few kids. And if she left me, I’d find another wife. I’d have more children. You’re a broodmare, Lucía. Just like all the rest. Don’t overstep your boundaries.’

He put his cigar back in his mouth and went back to his desk. He had some more mail to sort through. Bills, most likely. He tossed them aside on the pile for Tinsley. Perhaps he’d go out for lunch today. The local Italian did the most delicious prawn pasta on Saturdays, in a creamy tomato sauce. Garlic and basil. The prawns were locally caught, too. Nice and fat and fishy.

Lucy went to the door and opened it. Then she turned to ask a question, a most inappropriate one, but she knew he wouldn’t care what she thought, and that he would answer her without qualms. ‘If you were to get a new wife, how young would she be?’

He shrugged, sitting down in his leather chair. ‘Early twenties.’

Lucy didn’t know which was worse; if he had already thought about his answer extensively, or if it was just off the top of his head. ‘So she would be younger than your own children.’

‘Aroundabout.’

‘You make me sick.’

'And you I,' he replied. 'But remember our vows made in the eye of God? _In sickness and in health,_ my love.'

He laughed, a horrible sound. Lucy closed the door behind her before fumbling a cigarette from the tin in her pocket and lighting it. There was a maid on the way up the corridor with coffee. She looked at Lucy and asked if she would like anything.

'Gin,' replied Lucy, already walking away. 'Gin in the greenhouse. I'll be having my meals there too.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goldsworth family theme: https://youtu.be/KbW6iGj3xKU?t=183 (from the time specified <3)


	6. Withdrawals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alcoholism and withdrawal are prevalent towards the end of this chapter!

The dinner at the Reverend's house seemed to have gone well. There had been no trouble, no misplaced words, no accidental insults. Daniela came home, let her coat, hat, and scarf be taken, and hurried upstairs to her room to kick off her heels and slip her feet into softer shoes. She wasn't used to heels. In fact, it had been the first time in over two years where she'd had to wear a pair.

Finally, Tinsley had thought. A day where everything had gone smoothly, and he wasn't left to sit in his office 'til midnight, waiting for the phone to ring with bad news.

The shouting woke him at around quarter to one in the morning. Ricky had been out at some club or other with his friends, and of course had drank far more alcohol than was safe, and upon returning home had decided it was the perfect time to air his grievances with his sister.

‘You can’t blame me for the fact dad wanted me to go!' Daniela was shouting. 'It wasn’t my choice.’

‘That’s worse! Don’t you get how that’s worse? You can do no bloody wrong in his eyes. You’re only his favourite because he loves no one but himself and you’re a bloody replica of him!’

Daniela glared at him. ‘They feel sorry for you. Both of them. They feel sorry for you because you let yourself fall apart. But they feel nothing of the sort for me, even though keeping yourself together is _infinitely_ harder than letting yourself fall apart.’

‘Don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking dare.’

‘I wasn’t allowed to do what you do,’ she continued vehemently. ‘I wasn’t allowed to scream and curse and tear the world apart. Because I’m a _lady._ And a lady’s emotions aren’t viewed as strong and passionate, they’re viewed as weak and hysterical. And that’s what you are! Weak and hysterical!’

‘Oh, you think I’m weak, do you? You’re the one who’s running away!’

Her face hardened. ‘I deserve it. I deserve it now. I went through more than you did.’

‘Oh piss off. You weren’t here for me and Marzia as much as you like to think you were.’ He swallowed, his hands flexed at his sides. ‘You were meant to protect us. That’s what older sisters _do.’_

‘I didn’t know _how,_ Ricky! I may have been your older sister but I was still a child!’

‘I should have been the oldest. The firstborn. I would’ve done a better job of it than you.’

She scoffed. ‘You? You’ve never had an ounce of responsibility in your life. Too busy drinking your meals and feeling sorry for yourself. You’re just like mum.’

‘And you’re-’

A knock on the door, loud, solitary. It opened, and Tinsley stepped in. He was wearing a faded navy dressing robe over a white t-shirt and pajama bottoms, but he was still the most dignified in the room. He looked from one to the other with such cold disappointment they couldn’t help but look away, avoiding his eyes, his face.

‘I’m beginning to wonder why I bother setting my alarm,’ he said, ‘seeing as I’m regularly woken by any two people shouting at each other in the middle of the night.’

Ricky crossed to the drink's cabinet and placed a snifter down loudly on the table. 'So sorry for the inconvenience.'

Daniela didn't say anything. She pulled her dressing robe tighter around her shoulders and stormed out of her own room, not with her nose in the air or her chin high, but with her glaring eyes set dead ahead. She slammed the door behind her.

'Right,' sighed Tinsley, squeezing his eyes shut, rubbing at them with his fingers. 'What happened.'

'Why in the world would I tell you.'

'Because I'm the one who will have to bloody deal with it.'

'You,' said Ricky, gesturing at him with the same hand that held his drink, 'are getting far too comfortable here. You're not part of this family. You _work_ for this family. So you will address me appropriately.'

'Yes. You're right. I do work for your family. So let me do my work. Sir.'

'Your work. What is your work? To fix this family? We can't be fixed. We either stay as we are or fall apart entirely. And the latter has already begun.'

'Has it?'

'Yes, it has. My dear sister Dani is moving away. And do you think she'll tell me? No, it's a _secret._ Even from me.'

'She can't move. Not without your father's permission. Not without being married.'

'I suppose you're right. Let me rephrase it; she's not moving away, she's running away. She's going into hiding. It doesn't matter. She's leaving regardless.'

'She can't,' repeated Tinsley, sterner than before.

'Well I don't know why you're telling me. I'm not running away. I'm not fleeing.' His voice was rising, growing shriller with each syllable. 'I'm the one who's voluntarily staying here, and yet I'm still treated as the bloody dunce of this family! It's not fair! It's not!'

Tinsley watched his erratic movements, his shaking hands, the way the brandy in his glass trembled like jelly. 'Have you ever visited a psychiatrist, sir?'

Ricky's head whipped around to look at him in shock. 'Excuse me? A psychiatrist?'

'It's not an insult.'

'Oh yes it is.' He sniffed, refilling his glass. 'I'm not mad or insane. I'm just... an emotional man.'

 _You're crazy,_ thought Tinsley, and although he didn't dare say this sentiment out loud, Ricky was looking at him as if he knew exactly what he was thinking.

'I'm not mad,' he repeated. 'I'm not insane.' He took a taste of his drink, pausing before downing the entire thing in one and wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist. ‘You have no idea what it’s like. My misery is with me every hour of every day. The smallest, most irrelevant thing can bring tears to my eyes. Sometimes when I’m in a group of people and everyone around me laughs at a joke, I feel the urge to cry, because they feel happy and I can’t even remember what happiness feels like.’ He sniffed, filling his brandy again, the decanter shaking against the delicate rim of the glass.

Tinsley took all this in with a neutral look on his face. ‘Must have been difficult. Growing up being treated as if you’re special because of your title, only to one day find out there’s nothing inherently special about you at all.’

Ricky’s eyes fluttered at the cool cruelty of the words. His neck felt stiff, constricted, as though Tinsley had grabbed hold of him with invisible hands and was swiftly wringing the breath from him. 'How dare you think you can say that to me.'

'Oh, I'm sorry, sir. Did you want my sympathy for your struggle? I can say the words. I just might fail at the sincerity of them.'

‘I don’t need your sympathy,' spat Ricky. 'I need your- your- I don’t know what I need. I never know what I need. I don’t even know what I want anymore, and I used to always know what I wanted.’ He raised a sharp hand. 'No, wait, I know what I want. I want you to leave my presence. Immediately. Right this instant. Don't you even speak another word to me. Just get out.'

Tinsley raised his brows in mild surprise before strolling to the nearest table and setting his glass down. He took his time with his departure, lingering at the framed painting of some other Goldsworth from times past. Upon closer look, he recognized it as a young Carmela Goldsworth, the former lady of the manor. She had the hateful black eyes passed down from generation to generation. Genetics, or a curse? Hard to say.

'Get out!' shouted Ricky, and he drew his arm back before flinging his glass across the room, a throw any pitcher would've been impressed by. Brandy rippled through the air to splash against the rug on the floor. The snifter shattered into a thousand stars against the wall before falling like them too. 'Get out now!'

Tinsley looked at the mess at the bottom of the wall. Then he looked at Ricky where he stood hyperventilating beside the drinks cabinet, a hand pressed to his chest. 'Sleep well, sir.'

He closed the door behind him.

* * *

Overnight, it began to snow. Large, fat, soft flakes that drifted in languorous circles before settling on the ground. Tinsley watched through the window of his office. The water of the lake looked whiter than usual. It was probably starting to freeze over.

The sound of the front door opening. Why? It was far too cold for anyone to go for a walk. Tinsley went out of his office, past the empty library, and into the hall. A few stray snowflakes had slipped in and lay melting upon the wood floor, and there was still a fresh coldness in the air.

He opened the front door, gritting his teeth against the sudden gust of iciness. Marzia was fading away into the monochromatic world.

‘Ma’am!' he called. 'Marzia! Where are you going?’

She didn’t respond. Tinsley huffed for a moment before fetching Mr Goldsworth’s heavy fur coat - it was far too large for him, but it would do - and following Marzia’s small footprints out into the snow. He would have to catch up with her quickly; the snow was falling fast and hard enough to already be covering any tracks she left behind.

She hadn’t gone far, in the end. She was under the rowan tree, wrapped in a fur coat and matching hat. Her hands were bare, and with them she was attempting to catch snowflakes.

‘You should come back inside, ma’am,’ he said, panting for breath due to the cold and exertion. Silvery clouds billowed from his nose and mouth. ‘I know we’re close to the house, but when snow gets heavy it’s very easy to lose your way even over such a short distance.’

She didn’t seem to be listening. Her hand was stretched up, fingers splayed, as if she wanted to take hold of the sky above. Instead she took hold of a low-hanging branch, heavy with clusters of bright red berries, twining her equally-red fingers through the twigs as though they were old friends.

‘I came out to check if the lake had frozen yet,’ she eventually said. ‘I took ice skating lessons in France.’

‘It won’t be solid for a while yet, ma’am. It’s best you come back inside.’

She lingered, teetering on her heels. 'Into the manor?'

'Well, yes. It's your home.'

‘I picture it on fire sometimes,’ she said. ‘At night. It has to be at night. Flames are more impressive in the dark. Although I suppose a big plume of black smoke would be equally as impressive during the day, seen for miles around… But what does it matter, as long as it burns? A great bundle of charred twigs. That’s what it is already, you know. In spirit.’

Tinsley hadn’t looked at the manor once while she spoke. He watched her, observed her. Despite her words, there was very little vindictiveness in her. Just curiosity. ‘You have strange thoughts, ma’am. Did you know that?’

‘“Strange”. Odd choice of word. I would’ve said “troubled”, or “concerning”. _“_ Strange” doesn’t quite do it justice.’ She finally looked at him, dryly. ‘I was called an “old soul” as a child. But there’s no such thing as a child with an old soul. I was quiet, and I was troubled. But parents don’t want to admit that their child might be of the troubled sort. It reflects badly on them.’ She looked back at the manor, her right hand distractedly pulling berries from the tree to let them drop to the white ground, spots of blood in the whiteness. ‘The truth is that I should’ve gotten help a long time ago. But I didn't. And it’s gotten to the point now where I don’t want help. I don’t know who I am without the trouble. I’ve built my life around it. It’s my foundation.’

Tinsley hugged Mr Goldsworth's coat tighter around him, folding his arms and tucking his hands in against his sides. ‘What were your siblings like as children?’

‘How should I know? I was the youngest. I wasn't even involved in the arguments in this house.’ She stopped pulling the tree apart and started cleaning the dirt from under her nails. ‘I only ever remember Dani being angry. Cold anger. Ricky was angry too, but it was a different sort. It was like he never knew where to put it. He could never decide. He’d throw it at anyone just to see if they’d care enough to catch it.’

The fact that the children were sad was not news to him. He had thought about their situation many times. ‘What age was Daniela when she first started hunting?’

‘She’s hunted for as long as I can remember. She likes shooting and killing innocent creatures. I think she's jealous of them.’

‘And what age was your brother when he started drinking?’

Marzia looked at him, and there was a touch of sadness in her glass eyes. ‘For as long I can remember, too. The first time he got drunk he was fifteen, maybe. He came into my room and got into bed with me and told me how he’d found father’s brandy and had drunk all of the bottle. I believed him. I could smell it. It stung. And then he started crying and said he thought he’d drank too much. And he had. He got violently ill. Vomited all over my bedroom floor. It was hardly even vomit. Just pure, regurgitated brandy. Could’ve bottled it right back up again.’

Tinsley pressed his lips together. ‘Your brother is a very sad man, isn’t he.’

‘Oh, horribly sad. Dani can handle her anger better, she can hold onto it for months and months. But Ricky burns out so suddenly, and then he’s left with nothing. And he has to fill it up with something. And that something is drink.’

Tinsley tilted his head back to look at the sky. It was much too cloudy for even a single star to peek through. The heavens weren’t watching them tonight. ‘That changes tomorrow.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean I’m getting rid of all his alcohol. Tomorrow. Before he wakes up.’

Marzia pursed her lips, went back to pulling berries. ‘He won’t like you for that.’

‘He will in time.’ He extended a hand, placed it upon her shoulder. ‘Come along, ma’am. It’s cold out here, and growing colder by the minute.’

Marzia accepted the guidance. She didn’t tell him about how she didn't mind the cold. She didn't tell him about how she’d once stayed outside for so long in the cold that dew gathered in her hair and eyebrows and eyelashes and froze into delicate little droplets. A pleasant numbness had come over her, one she could have slept in forever. A tundra Ophelia.

She led the way back towards the manor, reciting the words of Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, _Oh, I shall have to say here a while / in glass water, in a seaweed net, / until this fact and I are reconciled: / I wasn’t loved, it’s as simple as that._

* * *

The staff were put to work early the next morning, emptying all brandies, ports, wines, and whiskeys that could be found in Ricky’s usual haunts (his room and the library). The kitchen soon smelled like a brewery, and Tinsley stood with a napkin held over his mouth and nose. He didn’t want to think about the amount of money that was currently being poured away in waves of glimmering gold and shimmering bronze. The money wasn’t of importance now.

‘This is going to unleash hell,’ Mrs Jennings said to him.

‘Perhaps. But it’s for his own good.’

‘You’re very convinced that you know what’s good for everyone. What gave you such confidence?’

‘Experience, Mrs Jennings. I often find that the more difficult the path, the more beneficial the end result will be.’

She hummed, dubious. ‘You should have a doctor on call. Just in case.’

It didn’t take long for Ricky to understand what had happened to all his bottles and carafes and decanters. He thundered downstairs and to Tinsley’s office.

‘How dare you ransack my room, my private space!’

‘It would be beneficial not only to you but to your family if you stopped drinking. Even for a little while.’ Tinsley looked him over. ‘Don’t you want to give it up? You might find you-’

Ricky flung a hand out towards him, clenching it into a sudden fist. ‘Shut up. Shut up. I want a drink. Now.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you.’

‘Do what I say, goddammit!’

‘I don’t have to do what you say. I have to do what your father says. And he is in support.’

‘Of course he’s in support. But I bet we won’t be seeing him give up the whiskey any time soon.’

With that Ricky left. He made no more demands for alcohol, and Tinsley made no offers.

* * *

 **Day One:** Hallucinations. Ricky heard scuttling in the walls, caught glimpses of spindly fingers sticking out from under his bed and through the doors of his armoire. He saw a shadowy figure standing in his bathroom. In order to stay safe, he remained curled up in his bed, but even with his head under the covers he could hear the scratching and whispering. Occasionally he heard a different voice, familiar, _It would be good for you, I think. It would be beneficial for you._

 **Day Two:** His head pounded and his skin shivered all over his body. He felt sick in his stomach, sick like he’d never felt sick before, but whenever he managed to stumble to the bathroom and fold in front of the toilet, he couldn’t make anything come up. He just retched, fingers down his throat and shoulders heaving. Then, hands on his arms, guiding him back to the hot twisted sheets of his bed. _It would be good for you. Beneficial._ Too hot, thought Ricky. I’m sweating all over. _Perhaps outside?_ Yes, outside. Don’t go. Stay with me. Hold my hand. _...If you wish._ I do. I wish.

 **Day Three:** A temperature, his heart racing. A cool cloth being pressed to his forehead until it grew too hot and had to be wrung out in ice water again. _Oh, he looks awful. He looks so ill. Do you think he can hear us?_ Yes, I can hear you. _No, I don’t think so._ I can, I can. _It’s best to let him rest, ma’am. It would be good for him. Beneficial in the long run._

The days snailed past, the sun rose and set and rose again. He felt like Death. He vomited more in that week that he had in his whole life. For once, he began to grow paranoid about what others thought of him. He was sure he looked a mess. He could feel his hair stiff against his forehead, coiled with sweat. His eyes felt tender, his lashes dry and sore. His hands shook, even when they simply lay against the bed, even when he clenched the sheets in order to try and stem the shaking. _Be still._ His voice, or another’s? _Be still._

‘His drinking may not have been as serious as it seemed,’ a strange man was saying. ‘He’s having mild to moderate withdrawal symptoms. Perhaps he was over-drinking at parties and events and then drinking to curb the hangover. But it’s good you got him when you did. It would have gotten much worse, very quickly.’ The sound of a briefcase being clipped shut. ‘He will feel very low for a time. Easily agitated. The medication will stem any cravings he might get. Just keep a close eye on him and give me a call if you’re worried.’

‘Thank you, doctor.’

Ricky waited until he heard the door close. Then he cracked open his bleary eyes. ‘Doctor?’

Tinsley paused in clearing away the tea Mrs Jennings had brought up for him and the doctor. ‘Ah, sir, you’re awake. Are you present?’

Ricky swallowed; his throat felt sticky and his mouth tasted sour. ‘Run me a bath. I feel disgusting.’

Tinsley straightened up, salver in hand. ‘I’ll get someone to do it for you now, sir.’

‘No. You’ll do it.’

‘It’s not my job.’

‘You think you can put me through this- this hell, and avoid facing even a smidgen of the consequences? I saw the most horrible things, heard them in the walls…’ He pushed himself onto an elbow with strenuous effort. ‘You were so driven to see me clean. So you’ll see it through ‘til the end.’

Tinsley took a deep breath, shoulders rising and falling. ‘Very well.’

After running the bath with hot water and testing it against the inside of his wrist to ensure it wasn’t _too_ hot, Tinsley helped Ricky into the bathroom. He was still very weak, very unstable, but he waved away Tinsley’s offer of undressing him.

‘God, no. This is already an insufferably undignifying situation as it is. Turn around.’

Tinsley turned around while Ricky stripped off his underwear and the sweat-soaked t-shirt he had spent the past night and day in. Gradually, he lowered himself into the water, gripping the sides of the bath hard. The water felt heavenly against his stiff muscles, and he curled up in it, hugging his knees to his chest and resting his head on them. It was meltingly peaceful. He could have fallen asleep right there.

Tinsley looked at Ricky’s back, at the ridge of his spine, at the shape of his shoulder blades pressing against his skin. He looked at the faded bruises on his left shoulder, at how they trailed down to his ribs. Well, he _thought_ they were faded, but the colouration of bruises can be deceiving. He squinted at them. Was bruising a side effect of withdrawal? The doctor had not said anything.

Ricky mumbled, ‘Wash my hair.’

And just like that, Tinsley was for once on a territory entirely unfamiliar to him; he could feel the floor rocking under his feet. ‘Oh... With what?’

‘Water. And shampoo. And then I need a shave.’

Tinsley fetched a ceramic jug from the windowsill and rinsed it in the sink. He brought over a small wooden step to sit on, rolling up his sleeves to prevent them from getting wet. Then he filled the jug with warm water and poured it over Ricky’s head like oil at a baptism. Ricky shivered at the sensation, hugging his knees tighter against his chest. Tinsley reached around to push Ricky's hair off his face in order to prevent the water leaking into his eyes, wringing it out with both hands, seeing as Ricky apparently wasn't going to do so himself.

He watched the droplets roll down the back of Ricky’s neck and down along his spine, heard the light tinkling as they reached the water they had come from. He eyed the bruises, letting his hand hover over them before continuing on and rinsing Ricky’s hair once more. It grew slick and shiny, individual curls sticking against his skin.

Tinsley got some shampoo and lathered it up between his hands before hesitating. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather do this yourself?’

Ricky shook his head. ‘I’m tired. So tired.’ His voice was mumbled. ‘And I’m weak. Light-headed.’

So Tinsley massaged the shampoo into his hair. It was something he had never done before. The suds slid down Ricky’s neck and shoulders, and each little bubble caught the light in an almost-rainbow. Tinsley rinsed them away with the jug.

Finally, Ricky turned his head, resting his bristly chin on his shoulder to look at Tinsley with sleep-heavy eyes. ‘That felt nice.’

Tinsley, oddly enough, felt himself blush. He turned his face away to hide it, pretending to be closing the lid of the shampoo. ‘I’d imagine so.’

‘Did it not feel nice for you?’

‘Why would it have felt nice for me?’

Ricky lowered his gaze from Tinsley’s eyes to his neck. ‘Because it feels nice to touch others. Just as it feels nice to be touched.’

Tinsley’s face burned hotter. He got to his feet and crossed the room to dry his hands in the towel. ‘I don’t care to be touched. And I don’t care to touch others.’

‘Then you’re strange and possibly dangerous.’

Tinsley didn’t laugh, but he had a feeling Ricky didn’t mean it as a joke. He turned back around to look at him, tucked up in the bath, still hugging his knees, his chin resting on them and his eyes as dark and wet as his hair. ‘What do you want me to do next.’

Ricky rubbed at his nose. ‘Wash my back. I can do the rest myself.’

Tinsley soaked a sponge and doused it in lavender-scented soap before starting to scrub, leaning in over the bath, one hand gripping the edge for balance. He pressed a little harder on the bruises, making Ricky flinch. Hm. So they were relatively new.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

Ricky was quiet for a moment. ‘About what.’

 _About agitating the bruises._ But Tinsley didn’t push it; he knew the tone in which Ricky had spoken. ‘...Nothing.’

Ricky sniffed. ‘You can go now.’

‘You said you wanted a shave, sir.’

‘Send someone else.’

‘...Very well.’

Tinsley left without questioning the sudden change in Ricky's attitude. He couldn't begin to _know_ the family. He had to remain distant, a separate entity, an omniscient watcher. Only then could he do his job efficiently.

He informed a passing footman of Ricky's request for a shave, dropping in an order for a haircut too, as Ricky's hair had gotten long and unruly and was in need of a trim. He was a handsome man, underneath the untidiness and the filthy language and the general bad attitude. With the right care and guidance, he could yet become a perfect lord of the manor.


	7. Lighthouse

The manor had two wings; one was broken. 

This broken wing (the west one) was not only broken, but it was sinking. This was evident from outside the building, in the cracking stone and the way the windows no longer fit as they once did. It was also evident from within the wing, in the way nails had fallen from walls, skirting boards no longer lined up, doors jammed, and the floors sloped, causing the mildewed furniture to list at an angle, as if on the decks of a storm-tossed ship.

There was a small, private chapel room. Tinsley could imagine the smell of incense that most likely filled it many years ago, although the scent had long been choked out by must and damp. The small ceramic statues of saints were chipped and faded, and the Holy Mary had toppled from her pedestal, smashing her delicate skull, leaving only her petal mouth and a lonely weeping eye intact.

In the far left of the room was a piano. Tinsley traced a finger through the dust, but he didn't care to try and play it. The strings were most definitely rusted beyond use, probably all slack and broken.

With a single finger he swept the shape of a treble clef into the thick dust, showing the dark wood beneath. It was beyond salvation. This entire wing was beyond salvation.

‘Pity,’ said Mr Goldsworth when he was told of the issue. ‘This house is old. It was my father’s, and his father’s, and his father’s father’s, and all that.’

Tinsley hadn’t been expecting much proactiveness on behalf of his employer, so he had developed his own plan. ‘I’m going to go to the local council today to try and find Ms Daniela’s new home. I’ll try and find the planner who sorted out the application, or the architect who was involved. The engineer too, if I can. I might mention the foundations of the west wing while I’m at it.’

Mr Goldsworth looked over his reading glasses at him. ‘But you said it was past saving.’

‘Yes, and I still believe that. But the instability might be dangerous to you and your family, and the other occupants within this house.’

‘Right, right, do whatever you think necessary. Just don’t go giving anyone money in return for a little advice.’

Tinsley left the office, nodding a quick _hello_ to the clockmaker at the grandfather clock, a local man called Tom, with large spectacles that sat on a large nose, who wore both a wristwatch and a pocket watch on a thin chain.

‘A real beauty you have here,’ commented Tom. ‘I fixed up the chime as well, so it'll be a-ringing again soon. I couldn’t tell you how much this would go for at an auction, now that it's been beautified.’

Tinsley continued down the landing and down the stairs. Marzia, who had been lingering at her bedroom door, watching the clockmaker, joined him. They could hear Ricky and Daniela still shouting at each other from some faraway room. They had been at each other’s throats all day.

‘Foolish, aren’t they?’ said Marzia as they passed by the library door. Her thin hand picked at the chipped lettering in the wood, _In libris libertas._ ‘They try to blame each other for everything but there’s only two people who can truly be blamed; the ones who brought us into this world.’

Tinsley didn’t agree or disagree. He just smiled and nodded and carried on to his office. He closed the door behind him, knowing Marzia’s penchant for eavesdropping, and her relative skill at the activity too.

First, he rang the council in an attempt to locate Daniela’s application. He had no luck with providing her name, proving that she was indeed smart and hadn’t listed herself as the applicant. He asked if he could come in later that day to have a look through the files himself, and after receiving confirmation, he hung up.

He imagined her new home would be somewhat out-of-the-way, somewhat small and easily overlooked. A site out in the country. He would find all matching applications within the last two years and contact the agents, be they planner, architect, or engineer. Hopefully the use of Lord Goldsworth’s name would grant him access many might not have.

‘You should leave her be,’ was Mrs Jennings’ opinion. ‘She’s not happy here.’

‘None of them are happy here.’

‘How did you find out about all this anyway?’

‘The grapevine, Mrs Jennings.’

The grapevine had transferred the message like so; a waiter overheard the conversation between Marzia and Daniela and had informed one of his coworkers, who had gone home and told her husband, who in turn told his friends at the pub later that night, one of whom told his wife, who was a little stuck for money after wasting her weekly allowance on gambling, so had gotten a hold of Mr Goldsworth’s private secretary’s number, and had handed over the information for a small fee, which Tinsley gratefully provided.

It wasn’t a bad message to get out, Tinsley thought. If people would come to him about family gossip they had heard, he would show his thanks in cash.

But Marzia, of course, had received the blame for this news being leaked, and so had locked herself in the library ever since Daniela had yelled at her the day before. In there she read poetry about sadness and grief and isolation, and played Ricky’s records; Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, all their melancholy songs. She surrounded herself with these little sensations until nothing outside the library existed, and there was no memory of her fight with Daniela apart from the vague sense of unease in her bones.

Tinsley found the house quite easily in the end. There was a relatively new application for a one-bedroom cottage on the opposite side of town to the manor. It had its own small plot of land, most of which was trees that hid the dwelling from the view of any passing cars. The applicant was a Francesca Norris, and the agent was a local planning firm. Tinsley, upon ringing this firm and wielding Mr Goldsworth's title, got them to crumble and admit that, yes, Daniela Goldsworth had been heavily involved with the application and intended to live in the house once it was complete. How near was it to completion? Very near. In fact, one could comfortably live there already.

Tinsley got the firm to fax him some drawings of the house. It was modest in comparison to the manor; one bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom, a sitting room, a stables, and a small room towards the back of the house that seemed to be intended as some sort of art studio. As far as Tinsley was aware, Daniela was not passionate about art.

This meant she was not moving into her new house alone.

The grandfather clock chimed, jerking him from his thoughts and causing his hands to loosen upon the drawings. They fluttered wildly to the floor. God, that chime had been loud, jarringly so. He scratched at his chin, wondering if the clock had been left to fall silent on purpose.

* * *

Ricky rapidly grew thinner and quieter. His wrists grew bony and his eyes had black smudges of coal under them. He ate when food was given to him and drank water, tea, and coffee only. When he had his cravings, he took his medication. Two tablets swallowed with water, down his gullet and into his gut. He always needed to work up the courage to take tablets, not because he was frightened of their effects, but because Daniela once swallowed a tablet without enough water and opened a small cut inside her oesophagus, which led to pain when swallowing for weeks after. He hated the thought of this; an injury on the inside of one's body, an injury no one else can reach.

‘Do you feel any better?’ asked Marzia hopefully, following him downstairs.

‘I don’t feel anything at all,’ he replied.

‘You need something to do with your time,’ persisted Tinsley when leaving the house in the early afternoon. ‘Instead of drifting around.’

Ricky ignored him, sitting on the porch and making his way steadily through a box of cigarettes. His feelings towards the private secretary had become mixed; he held a bitterness toward him while simultaneously feeling as if they were, on some level, more intimate than before, not only in body but in mind as well.

‘You have a full bookcase in your room,’ said Tinsley, descending the steps to the driveway, tucking the tail-ends of his scarf under the lapels of his coat. He was always so neat, so tailored, so certain of his place in the world. Ricky despised him for this. ‘Surely you used to read.’

‘Used to.’

‘You could always start again.’

Ricky drew on his cigarette, blew the smoke towards the sky. ‘I don’t want to.’

Tinsley’s rare impatience reared its head. ‘So you would be happy to sit here and do nothing at all. Every day.’

‘Yes.’

Tinsley tutted at him. Then he ducked into the car and was escorted away into town, on whatever deviously destructive task he had assigned himself that day.

The car returned half an hour later with Carmela.

‘Oh, Ricardo,’ she said once she had gotten onto the porch. She walked with a cane, as she had a gammy leg caused from some injury in childhood. The cane was dark shiny wood, the handle glistening mother-of-pearl. ‘You look bloody awful. Your eyes are dull.’

‘Why thank you, abuela.’

They had always called their grandmother by her Spanish title. It was the only part of their Spanish heritage they had bothered to keep alive. Ricky and his sisters were so estranged from it that, until they were in their teens, they believed Carmela’s name _was_ Abuela.

He stood up, following her into the hall. A footman took her heavy coat, her hat and scarf and gloves. ‘Abuela, can you speak Spanish?’

‘What?’ she said irritably over her shoulder. ‘No. Why?’

‘Could your parents?’

‘No. I don’t think so. Why do you care?’

‘Surely someone knew it along the way. Our ancestors were Spanish at one point or other, came from the country, spoke the language, lived the culture.’

‘What are you blathering on about, Ricardo?’ Mr Goldsworth came down the stairs from his office, footsteps thumping against the carpeted steps. ‘Don’t you have a bar to drink into nonexistence?’

Ricky wrinkled his nose at him, but he left quick-smart. The bruises on his shoulder still agitated him. He rolled this shoulder with a glower. He remembered Tinsley’s hand hovering over it. _Sorry._ About what? _...Nothing._

He was sure Tinsley saw almost everything that happened in this house. He lived in the walls, in the paintings. But there were no paintings in his father’s office. And who was to say that, even if Tinsley _did_ see the occasional trouble, the occasional raised hand (open or clenched into a fist), he wouldn’t manage to un-see it too?

But Ricky knew that Tinsley was honorable, if cold, and that he was caring, if hesitant to show it. He saw it in the way he handled Marzia’s dreaming periods, speaking with her softly, taking her arm to guide her away from potential danger. He saw it in the way he had dealt with Ricky’s drinking habit which had, Ricky would now admit, strayed far too close to alcoholism for his own good.

Yet Tinsley managed to miss one key aspect; he focused on the greater good of the family, on keeping them together and stable, while at the same time being oblivious to the fact that there was no ‘greater good’ in the family, that they were not better together than apart. And sometimes, Tinsley’s strive for the greater good could manage to harm everyone else along the way.

* * *

Daniela visited Tinsley's office later that night, striding in with her head high and neck stiff. When she spoke, her voice was relatively cool. ‘You found it.’

Tinsley knew there was no point in lying. Her agent had probably given her a call after Tinsley had rang them about the house. ‘Yes. I found it.’

‘Are you going to tell everyone?’

‘I was going to tell your father.’

‘I’ll move anyway. I don’t care what anyone says. I’ll be moving to my house - my home - and they can drag me out with their bare hands if they have to. But I’ll keep returning. I’ll leave this house every day, even though I’m less excited about leaving and more excited about never having to come back here again.’

Tinsley watched her closely, but her face was as hard and guarded as ever. ‘The applicant’s name was Francesca. Who is that?’

Daniela looked at him for a long moment, a crease appearing between her brows. ‘Why are you determined to ruin every little bit of happiness we have left? Has your life been so bloody miserable that you can’t stand to see others happy?’

‘My life has had its difficulties, ma’am, but I hold no bitterness over it.’ He waited for her to reply, and after she didn’t, he continued. ‘You can still move. Contrary to your apparent belief, your father might be in favour.’

‘As long as I wed,’ she said flatly.

‘I could find you a suitor, ma’am.’

‘I don’t _want_ a suitor, for Christ's sake. Are you all so bloody blind?’

Tinsley ran his tongue along the back of his teeth before finally biting the bullet. ‘Is Francesca Norris someone real?’

She raised her eyebrow an inch. ‘She's one of Ricky’s friends. And a close friend of mine.’

‘Close?’

She pulled at her tie, a satin number, paisley and autumnal. Then she strolled around behind his desk to the window. She stood with her hands at her lower back, one hand clasping the opposite wrist, like her father often did when he was in thought. ‘What are your suspicions?’

He smiled a small smile. ‘I’m not new to this world, ma’am. I know there’s close friends, and then there’s “close friends”. And I know you are far too charismatic not to have found a husband by now if you were so inclined.’

She rested an elbow on the windowsill, drummed out a rhythm with her fingers. The white sunlight fell against the right side of her face, her square jaw and high cheekbones. ‘Well, if we’re sharing suspicions, mind if I tell you mine about you?’

Tinsley raised his brows, his chair turned to face her. ‘If it pleases you.’

‘Oh, it does.’ She leaned forwards, lowering her voice. ‘I think you and I are not too unalike.’

He seemed vaguely interested. ‘And why do you think that?’

‘You’re awfully neat. Awfully clean and well-groomed. And you’re unmarried, despite your charm and your looks. So, do you have any “close friends” on the scene?’

‘No.’

‘Come along. You can tell me. Are you gay?’

He replied calmly. ‘I don’t know.’

‘What does that mean, you don’t know?’

‘It means I don’t know. I don’t quite care enough to label myself. I want what I want and if I’m lucky enough to be given the opportunity to take it, I take it.’

‘Interesting.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Well I’m gay. Entirely. But unfortunately, after Ricky’s activities came to light, my mother said that one gay in the family was enough. She believed it to be an innocent joke, of course, as I had been hiding my own proclivities for a while, but it left me in quite a pickle, as you’d imagine.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘No you’re not. You don’t feel anything, ever. I can see it in your eyes. Or perhaps you're a little like me; you feel so many emotions at once that you don’t feel any at all, similar to how a gust of wind can render one unable to draw breath.’

He narrowed his eyes in mild amusement. ‘In a way, I suppose.’

‘Very secretive, aren’t you.’

‘Secretive? That’s a nice way to put it. Your brother prefers the term “boring”.’

‘Ricky prefers any term that will hurt others and make him feel better about himself.’

Tinsley pushed his chair from side-to-side. ‘Have you two always disliked each other?’

‘No. No, it’s just gotten worse over the years. He’s a very jealous creature. He wants to be the first pick for everything just so he can reject the offer.’

‘I see.’

‘You see,’ she mocked, pushing herself away from the sill and towards the door. Tinsley spun his chair to follow her. ‘You see, you see, you see. I don’t think you see half as much as you say you do.’

‘If only.’

‘If you’re going to sabotage my one chance at happiness, feel free. Just know that I’ll get my own back.’ She stopped at the door and tapped the handle. ‘Do you have anything in your background you want to stay hidden?’

He visibly bristled, uncrossing his legs. ‘What?’

‘Yes, that’s what I thought. You’re not the only one who’s been digging around, Tinsley. I can get my hands dirty too.’

She closed the door behind her.

Tinsley paced the floorboards, hands behind his back, before stopping at the window and staring out towards the faraway gate that lay beyond the sweeping drive and all the flora and fauna around it. For the first time in a long time, Tinsley thought about himself and his past. He rarely ever did this. Most of the time he felt like an enigma even in his own eyes.

Tinsley had been a lonely child. Not only had he had no siblings, he had been disinterested in making a single friend. Throughout school, throughout university, he had remained friendless. If he went to a movie, or to a restaurant, or to a bar, he went alone. Occasionally he would engage in a conversation with an interesting stranger - and occasionally these interesting strangers would become brief lovers - but more than anything, loneliness was his calling.

There is something people will rarely say about loneliness; although it can be insufferable, it can also be the most freeing thing in this world. When there is nothing to keep one in a certain house in a certain town, then why not leave?

 _Perhaps Bukowski put it best,_ thought Tinsley. _'_ _When nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. What do you call it, freedom or loneliness?’_

Personally, he believed freedom and loneliness were one and the same. Every coin had two sides; flip it, catch it, cover it with your hand, are you brave enough to take a peek at the result?

At twenty-three years of age, Tinsley left his hometown. He said a short goodbye to his parents - two people he never got to know - and he glanced over his potential destinations on the bus timetables, and he paid his chosen fare and left.

Unlike most people his age, Tinsley didn’t set his sights on a big city. Instead he turned away from civilization and travelled further into the country. He wanted nothing to do with the overrated hustle and bustle of a city, the stinking streets and the stinking attitudes of the stinking people who lived there. He wanted fresh, cold air, the type of air that you did not breathe in as much as the air decided it belonged in you and of you.

But what about money? How could a twenty-three year old man possibly up and leave his home with no support, no career prospects, and very little savings? The answer is this; Charles Tinsley played the piano. He played it very well. He played it better than he probably thought he did. 

His grandfather had left a beautiful grand piano to the family when he had passed, and Tinsley had learned on that. His piano teacher had been a strict and stern old woman - the same woman who had taught his mother and had probably taught his deceased grandfather too - and although he had yearned for a younger, fresher teacher, he had had no choice but to learn from Madame Mayfield.

 _Hardly an appropriate surname,_ thought Tinsley, _seeing as she was closer to a dead winter woodland than a field in May._

But she had taught him, and he had learned. All the greats; Mozart, Chopin, Tchaikovsky. Some lesser known ones. Her personal favourites, perhaps. Soon he was able to play by ear. Then he had a go at composing his own tunes, but it wasn’t that interesting to him.

‘Come along,’ said Madame Mayfield. ‘You have talent. You could go far if you put your mind to it.’

‘I don’t want to put my mind to it,’ was all he said.

‘Why not?’ she demanded. ‘Why not, you silly little boy?’

But demand as she did, there was no prying an answer from Tinsley if he didn’t want to give it. He was a quietly stubborn child. He could not be moved nor influenced. He did what he wanted and he did it without flare.

‘A deep thinker,’ his father would say.

‘An old soul,’ his mother would say.

But all children who have been called such things know there is no such thing as a child who thinks deeply or a child with an old soul. There is a child who is unhappy. A child who is understimulated, a child who is left alone far too much and is beginning to get far too used to watching other people do things, and not getting used to doing these things themselves.

Because of his piano, he never had to wait a table, or pull a pint, or froth up the milk for a coffee. He turned his attention to fancy restaurants and fancy hotels who wanted nothing more than a tall, fine-looking chap to sit at a piano and play the elegant, lilting notes of a classical piece while wealthy customers spent all their money. He didn’t have to grab the attention of a crowd. He didn’t have to knock anyone’s socks off. This was fortunate, as he was not much of an entertainer. But he could play like an angel.

Many people said it was due to his hands, and yes, while his hands were long and elegant and could comfortably span an octave, he also knew very much that hand size had little to do with whether or not one could become good at the piano. Only familiarity could help someone develop their skills at a piano, and there was only one way to increase familiarity; practice. And Tinsley practiced a lot. He had little else to do.

Madame Mayfield died when he was fourteen. He didn’t go to her funeral. He was too young to truly understand death, or to care about it. But when he reached nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, and he _still_ didn’t care about death, his mother brought a doctor to the house.

‘Charlie, this is Doctor Manning,’ she explained to him. ‘He’s going to do some tests with you today.’

So Tinsley did the tests. He was diagnosed with an acute form of psychopathy; he could lie without a hint of guilt or remorse, his empathy was weak at best, and he had no realistic long-term goals.

‘But it’s nothing dangerous,’ said Doctor Manning to Tinsley’s mother. ‘Ignore the movies and the scary books. Not everyone with psychopathy becomes a killer. He has no history of violence or crime, no sexual promiscuity, and no parasitic lifestyle habits. He is a perfectly healthy young man.’

Doctor Manning was incorrect about one of these, but only because Tinsley didn’t tell him the truth; Tinsley was actually quite promiscuous. It was mainly due to his late-night piano playing in dark bars and dim-lit clubs. He would lay with wives in the audience, and he would lay with husbands. He would bed barmen and waitresses. He would engage in brief but intense activity with stagehands. Why not? It wasn’t hurting anyone, and he enjoyed it all tremendously. None of this was Doctor Manning’s business anyway. Tinsley didn’t like Doctor Manning. He didn’t like his beady little eyes and twitchy upper lip.

So Tinsley’s diagnosis was not extreme. He was not prone to violence. He didn’t partake in crimes, petty or otherwise. He didn’t actively harm those around him (he was capable of passively harming others, of course, but he was unaware and took no joy from it). His biggest issue was his lack of respect for death, whether it was happening to other people or to himself. He often thought he would be equally comfortable at both ends of a gun’s barrel. He could pull a trigger. What was it but a bracing of the arm, a quick movement of a finger? Then, death. Whatever that was.

Tinsley continued his piano playing in all the small towns he happened upon. He made a healthy handful a night, enough to cover a room and food for a week or so. He was not a wild spender, more frugal than anything else. The biggest purchase in his life so far had been his car, and if he indulged himself, it was at the expense of an interested member of the audience.

‘Come!’ a woman would beckon from the bar, a fur scarf piled around her shoulders, her décolletage bare and golden in the barlight. ‘You look like you have a story to tell.’

‘Not many, I’m afraid.’

‘Tell me how you learned to play like that and I’ll buy you a drink whenever you make me laugh or swoon.’

So he would make her laugh, and he would make her swoon, until they were both too drunk to feel lustful anymore, and they would say their drunken goodnights and never see each other again.

‘Cigar?’ a man would say - a bit rugged, a bit charming. ‘You played fabulously.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Are you here tomorrow night?’

‘No.’

A smile. ‘Perfect.’

And Tinsley would wake in a strange bed in a strange room and think - not for the first time - why do I bother renting a room at all?

But he didn’t really mind. He knew he would never settle. His attention had yet to be held for any notable amount of time by any person, place, or thing. The only person in the world he truly, unequivocally cared about was none other than himself. He didn’t believe in owing things to anyone. He hadn’t written a letter home since the day he’d left, eleven years ago, and he had seen enough to fill multiple letters. If he was going to write anything home now, it would have to be a full-length novel.

 _Maybe I’ll do that one day,_ he had thought to himself. _Write a book about all the people I’ve met, all the things I’ve seen. I won’t be able to play the piano forever, anyway. The carpal tunnel will get me sooner or later._

And the carpal tunnel did get him, at twenty-seven years of age. So he turned his eye to a more stable career; secretary work. Some businessmen wanted male secretaries only, whether for their own comfort or to put their wives' minds at ease. The majority of these businessmen were situated in London, so Tinsley moved to the city. It turned out he was quite efficient at the work. He was organized, diligent, calm in the face of stress. He would go the extra mile for little in return. He enjoyed serving others. He hated the Underground. Tinsley was certain that, when the Ancient Greeks spoke of Tartarus, they had really been predicting the sweltering heat and roaring trains of the infernal London Underground.

Then he met a woman. He didn’t feel particularly strongly about her, but he was certain she loved him, so one evening at dinner in a nice restaurant, he proposed. She accepted. That was supposed to be the end. But it wasn’t.

He didn’t want to think about all that, however. He knew there were two possible things Daniela had unearthed; his medical records showing his diagnosis, or his younger self’s promiscuity. He believed the former was more likely. People cowered at the word ‘psychopath’, because of both ignorance and misinformation. He would, most likely, be fired from his position here. It would be the first time he ever got fired from anything. It would be the first time someone other than himself and Dr Manning knew of his diagnosis.

He sat down at his desk and linked his hands together in front of his mouth. His fingers were cold. He dialled Mrs Jennings' office and requested a fire to be started. Two maids came along and dumped in the coal and wood and within minutes the flames were roaring and he could feel the heat licking against the right side of his face.

He checked his watch. It wasn't _too_ early for a drink, so he poured himself a pony glass of port and lit a cigarette and settled himself in one of the mismatched chairs in front of the fireplace. He had to think.

* * *

There was a knock on the door. 'Tinsley?'

Tinsley closed his tired eyes. ‘What is it, Ricky.’

The door squeaked open. Ricky seemed surprised to find him not at his desk. He smoothed down his shirt and stood near the fire. ‘I’m here about a serious matter.’

‘Well, colour me surprised.’

‘I want a tutor. I want a Spanish tutor. To teach me the language.’

Tinsley sat back with a puzzled but intrigued frown on his face. ‘Why?’

‘Because no one in my family knows it. And I think that’s strange. Surely someone along the line knew it, and had to give it up, forcibly or otherwise. The thought of that annoys me. So I want to revive it.’

Tinsley nodded once, approval ghosting across his face before it settled into his usual neutrality. ‘Very well, sir. I’ll find one for you.’

‘Find one that isn’t too old-fashioned, will you?’ said Ricky, pausing at the door. ‘I want to be able to speak the language conversationally. Not just recite old poems that will make me sound ridiculous.’

‘I’ll do that.’ Tinsley stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray beside him. ‘Any particular reason this has come up?’

Ricky leaned against the door, resting his chin on it so that his face was turned towards the ceiling and his throat was bared. ‘I was thinking about what you said. About hobbies. And the harmfulness of passivity.’

‘Well, I’m surprised you even think about what I say at all.’

‘I think about you a lot, Tinsley,’ he murmured, still watching the ceiling. ‘Probably more than I should.’

Tinsley looked at him from under his brows, his drink pausing halfway to his mouth. Ricky didn’t look back. He just gave the door a light, casual tap and left.

* * *

‘Daniela.’ Tinsley tapped a knuckle against his desk, sucking air through his teeth. ‘Daniela. I wanted to talk to you about earlier. About words exchanged and threats that may have been made.’

She sat on a Queen Anne chair in front of the fire that had long burned low, but although the flames were no longer visible, the coals were smouldering, the wood glowed and sparked, and the heat was ferocious. A maid had brought a salver of steaming tea and cakes to sustain them until dinner was served. Thick snowflakes slapped against the glass.

‘Alright,’ said Daniela after a moment’s silence. ‘Say what you want to say.’

Tinsley took a breath. Then he sat down on the chair across from her, smoothing his trousers down to his knees where he let his hands rest. ‘Your siblings… They’re relatively unstable. Marzia seems to live in a different world most of the time. She forgets to eat some days. And Ricky is… testy. Especially now. But he’s on the mend. And I believe your sister might get there one day too.’

Daniela hadn’t looked at him as he spoke. She plucked a sugar cube from the bowl with the dainty mechanical tongs provided and dropped it into her coffee. She stirred it in. ‘What does any of that have to do with me?’

‘I would be worried that, if you left, Marzia and Ricky might spiral again.’

She placed her spoon on the saucer of her cup. ‘Their mental health is not my responsibility.’

Tinsley observed her in silence. ‘How can you say that?’

‘How can I say that?’ She placed her cup down without having taken a taste. ‘Do you understand what it’s like to be the sole dependent of your siblings? I did it for long enough. I’ve done it for _too_ long, truth be told. And I can’t do it anymore. I can’t sacrifice my happiness indefinitely. They’ve grown too used to having me around to argue with mum and dad. They’ve grown too used to having me around to fall back on. It’s not fair. They need to learn to stand up for themselves, and they won’t do that if I stay. They're not children anymore. It’s a kind cruelness, Tinsley. I’m just… I’m pushing them out of the nest. I’m leaving them to forage for themselves. Give a man a fish, _etcetera etcetera.’_

Her eyes had grown bright and feverish, confirming Tinsley’s latent suspicions; a ribbon of madness ran through this bloodline. An illness undealt with.

‘A kind cruelness,' he repeated. 'Explain that to me.’

‘Kindness and cruelty go hand-in-hand,’ she said, not lifting her eyes from her coffee. ‘I had to get cruel before I could get kind. I couldn’t go straight to kindness. I didn’t know how to. I had to find the kindness in my cruelty. And it's hard sometimes, because I get so confused between what's cruel and what's kind. They can be so similar. And sometimes what can be cruel to others can be kind to you, and vice versa.’ She pressed her lips in a line, tucked a strand of sandy hair behind her ear. ‘My life has been a maze. Trying to navigate my way out of the situation I was in, with no one to guide me, no one I could speak to who could truly understand. Fran tries to understand, and I love her for that, but I know she doesn’t truly. You know the isolation that comes with that feeling, right? A ship on a black sea, desperately flashing a code, but there’s no one around for miles. No one. Apart from the lighthouse. But you can’t go back to the lighthouse, because of the rocks. You’ll ruin yourself along the way. So you just float. Alone. Sometimes someone finds you, tries to decode you. Other times you just sink.’

Tinsley dropped his gaze to his lap, where his hands were fidgeting under the table, pinching the fabric of his trousers. He suddenly felt very young, very clueless, but without the added benefit of innocence and naivety. ‘Yes. I know the feeling.’

She finally took a mouthful of her coffee, swallowing it down. ‘What’s your lighthouse, hm?’

‘...A woman. Back in London. Well, she wasn't just a woman. She was my fiancée.’ He waited for the shock he was sure would come, but Dani’s face remained calm and reserved. Maybe it wasn’t so shocking of a fact to other people. Maybe it was only still shocking to him. ‘We had to move apart. She broke my heart too often, you see, and the worst part was I wasn’t even in love with her. I just believed she was in love with me. It was narcissism on my part. She was very lovely. Very beautiful. I was proud to be seen with her, but there was no love. I had to call it quits. I had to move away. Far away. To here.’

‘Why did it end?’

‘She rekindled an old flame. And I couldn’t hold a candle to them. So I moved away and swore off love. Horrible drug. Can ruin your life if you let it.’

She didn’t laugh at his weak attempt at humour. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’

'But you understand why I have to leave, then.'

'Yes. I suppose I do.'

'Then promise me you’ll leave me alone. Just let me be. Because I will follow through with my threat. There'll be no reason not to.’

He looked at her. 'Okay. I promise.'

'And if you break that promise, I will kill you,' she said in a calm and level voice, so calm Tinsley almost didn't register what had been said. 'I will. I'll kill you. I mean that in the most literal sense of the word. And you know full well I'd be capable of it. I kill every day. It's surprisingly easy after a while. In fact, for me, it was surprisingly easy from the start.'

Tinsley didn't know how to respond to any of this. He just stared at her black eyes and they stared back.

A maid knocked on the door. 'Dinner is being served, ma'am, sir. Where would you like to eat?'

'My room,' said Daniela, standing up and leaving her coffee. 'Thank you.'

Tinsley cleared his throat, looking away from the door. 'I'll have mine in here.'

While he ate his dinner, the grandfather clocked chimed the hour, nine jarring reverberations, the first so sudden that it caused Tinsley to drop his knife. It clattered against his plate and onto his desk, smearing gravy on the blotter.

'Oh for Christ's sake,' he spat, picking the knife back up and dumping it back on his plate. 'I'm not even bloody hungry.'


End file.
